


Freelance Good Guys: Troubled Tides

by TheGreys (alienjpeg)



Series: Looming Gaia [23]
Category: Freelance Good Guys, Looming Gaia
Genre: Action/Adventure, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Cecaelias, Drama, Drug Abuse, Dubious Consent, Explicit Language, F/M, Fantasy, Gen, Hypnotism, M/M, Magic, Mermaids, Mind Control, Sexual Content, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:27:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21869761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alienjpeg/pseuds/TheGreys
Summary: The Oceanic Resistance needs help once again. This time, Alaine discovers the madness behind Mr. Ocean’s methods.
Series: Looming Gaia [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/833844
Comments: 8
Kudos: 6





	1. Green Bath

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the Looming Gaia series. It doesn't stand well on its own, so I recommend at least reading "Chains of Melody" and "Ocean Returns to the Sea" before starting this one or else it won't make a lot of sense.
> 
> Please heed the tags for content warnings.
> 
> Check out the Looming Gaia blog for concept art, news, discussions, dumb memes and more: https://loominggaia.tumblr.com/post/175087795478/looming-gaia-masterpost

****

**[CHAPTER 1: GREEN BATH]**

_A LONG TIME AGO_ …

This was no ordinary vessel. The vessel was a whale, and no ordinary whale at that. Upon its mottled back was a great iceberg, ever expanding with each spray from its blowhole. Two tusks made from the same enchanted ice protruded from the sides of its maw.

The leviathan creature—known locally as a “floeback”—was magical by nature, and like all things magical, it opposed all things logical. There were no organs to be found in its body. It was hollow and cavernous inside, with a cluster of crystal stalactites glowing brilliantly above.

It was a living cave, more iceberg than whale. Forever it skimmed the top of the water, for it was not strong enough to pull its icy hide below the waves any longer.

This particular specimen wasn’t strong enough to do much of anything anymore. The Oceanic Resistance had been using her as a vessel for most of her life, and such abuse was taking its toll. She floated listlessly across the Northern Sea, struggling against the waves she once cut through with ease in her youth.

The white ice upon her back was white no more, instead tinted a sickly green color. Inside her cavernous belly was an infestation of glowing, green fungus. The mushrooms plagued every inch of the creature’s innards. They formed intricate webs across the floor of her belly, which the Resistance soldiers walked over without a thought. Each step sent tiny green spores wafting into the air.

“You must not eat it, otherwise you will die,” Mr. Ocean told them, and he did so with a mouth full of it, his palms stained green with its residue.

Mr. Ocean rested inside a fleshy green polyp inside the whale’s belly. The small space was his personal quarters, no more or less impressive than anyone else’s. He picked up a crude stringed instrument carved from driftwood, its neck almost as long as he was tall. He sat down with its oblong base in his lap. But before his clawed fingers could pluck a single note, someone arrived to disturb him.

A blue cecaelian face peeked through the opening of the polyp. “Mr. Ocean, we have an urgent situation,” Roach told him breathlessly.

Mr. Ocean hardly glanced at him as he carefully tuned his instrument. “What is it?” he asked. It was less of a question and more of a statement.

“It’s the vessel,” replied Roach, “something’s wrong with her. She’s barely moved in days, and we’re sitting right in the middle of an Alliance territory.”

At this, Mr. Ocean finally turned towards his commander. He said nothing, so Roach urged, “What should we do? I am _not_ losing all of our forces because this beast is too lazy to flap its flukes!” Anger was swelling in his voice, so Mr. Ocean raised a hand to calm him. The thin webs between his fingers were almost translucent in the glow of the fungus.

Abandoning his instrument yet again, Mr. Ocean crawled out of the polyp and observed his surroundings. He saw a massive cave riddled with polyps much like his own, the largest of them cut open and made into domiciles for his soldiers. The fungus was everywhere, upon every wall and floor and even the ceiling above. Its spores floated in the air like fireflies.

Mr. Ocean observed his soldiers, a small army of mermaids roaming around the cave. They were the “dorikori”—deadly warriors he’d stolen away from the Aquarian Alliance. He rescued them from their enslavement, and in return, they fought for his cause.

Their numbers were dwindling these days. They were bound to him by passion and nothing more, thirsting for vengeance against the Alliance.

He could not afford to lose even one of them now, whether by battle, undine brainwashing, or their own waning passion for the cause.

“Well?” Roach pressed impatiently.

Stroking his long beard of tentacles, Mr. Ocean finally replied with a gurgling sigh, “She’s dying.”

Roach blinked. “The vessel? How do you know?”

“Just look at her, my friend. Infected by fungus, riddled with cancer…” Mr. Ocean patted the fleshy polyp beside him. “She’s been on borrowed time for ages.”

Roach bared his pointed teeth and snapped, “She can _not_ die here! Not in Sovereign’s court! Whatever it takes, you need to get her bloated corpse moving again before it rots away and exposes us!”

“I’m not a necromancer,” Mr. Ocean told him flatly. “I can’t do anything about the whale. We have no choice but to abandon her.”

Roach looked back at the dorikori. “This region is crawling with undine. If we leave the vessel, we might lose every last dorikori to song,” he warned.

Plucking a fat mushroom off the wall, Mr. Ocean examined it thoughtfully as he replied, “The only song they shall obey is my own.”

*

_LATE_ _AUTUMN 6006_

Alaine didn’t bother to knock. She simply barged into Evan’s office and plopped down in the chair on the other side of his desk. Casually she threw her legs over its wooden arm.

“You wanted to talk to me about something?” she queried. The desktop was scattered with papers. Evan gathered them all up, neatly straightened them before slapping the stack down before her.

“Take a look at these,” he said.

Alaine raised a hairless eyebrow at him before sliding her legs to the floor, sitting upright to take the stack of papers. They appeared to be work contracts. She quickly flipped through them and reported, “They’re all contracts from Woodborne.”

“Yes,” replied Evan. “Notice anything else?”

Examining the contract on top of the stack, Alaine read aloud, “Missing person: human female, six years of age. Brown hair, fair complexion and—”

“Right. Read the next one,” Evan told her.

Alaine glanced at him, then flipped to the next contract. Once again she read aloud, “Missing person: human female, ten years of age. Dark hair—”

“And the next one,” urged Evan.

Alaine flipped to the next page, this time skimming the text in silence. Quickly she moved on to the next and the next, until she reached the end of the stack. Her gaze rose up to meet Evan’s, her eyes wide with fury.

“Twenty-one children went missing in Woodborne this week,” said Evan, folding his hands over the desk. “Every one of them just happens to be a human female under the age of twelve—”

“ _Undine_ ,” Alaine said sharply, slamming the stack back onto the desk.

Evan nodded. “I thought that might be the case. So, given that you’re the expert on Aquarian affairs, I thought you should lead the charge on this job. What do you say?”

The mermaid rose to her scaly, green feet. “I say we should have left a week ago. How many crewmen do we want for this?”

Evan shrugged. “That’s up to you.”

Alaine looked back at the contracts sitting on the desk, silent in thought for a long moment. Finally she decided, “Bring everyone.”

“Everyone?” Evan cocked an eyebrow.

“We might be dealing with the Aquarian Alliance here. I’m not facing those bastards again unless I have a full crew behind me,” Alaine explained. “If you can wrangle the crew, I can wrangle those kids and we’ll all come home with fat pockets.”

Evan fell silent for a brief moment. Brows arching, he let out a little sigh and replied, “Fair enough. I’ll see who’s available…”

*

Once all was said and done, every mercenary in the Freelance Good Guys left their compound just before sunrise. Most of them rode in a simple horse-drawn cart. The centaurs, Javaan and Elska, trailed behind on their own hooves while others rode horses.

Rather than a horse, Isaac was mounted on the back of his roc, Shadow. Though she longed to use her wings, she plodded forth on her talons to keep pace with the caravan. The road to Woodborne was busy with traffic, the great majority of it headed away from the town.

Alaine and her crew passed horse after horse, wagon after wagon, until they saw a curious sight in the woods. A warm glow was shining through the shade behind distant trees.

From the back of the cart, Glenvar squinted at the light and nudged Evan. “What’s that light over there, Chief?” he queried, pointing his finger towards the forest. Evan jolted awake, having just nodded off seconds before.

He sat up and blinked, focusing on the light. “Probably some satyrs having a revel,” he yawned. He tapped the shoulder of Lukas, sitting on his other side. “What time is it, Lukas?”

The archer plucked a pocket watch from his leather vest. After a brief glance, he responded, “We’re about four hours from Woodborne.”

Evan groaned a little, unsatisfied with the answer. He looked towards Alaine, who was manning the reins at the front of the cart. Jeimos was slumped down by her side, surely asleep.

“Four hours don’t cut it,” said Glenvar. “I gotta shite brewin’ that could choke a whopper!”

“Glenvar, really now! That’s absolutely vile!” cried Jeimos, twisting around to face him. Apparently the elf had been awake after all.

Scrubbing his fingers against his forehead, Evan sighed and called to Alaine, “Captain Fontaine, permission for a break?”

Alaine pulled the reigns to the right, guiding the draft horses to the side of the dirt road. They came to a stop. “Ten minutes,” she said. “If you’re not back in the cart by then, you’ll have a long walk ahead of you.”

The crew accepted her conditions and rose to stretch their cramping muscles. Those in the cart climbed out to walk around, Glenvar quickly disappearing into the woods. Isaac slid out of Shadow’s saddle. He cringed as he took a few bow-legged steps away from her.

Dismounting Javaan nearby, Balthazaar chuckled at the young man’s misery and slapped him on the back. “Saddle-sore already?”

“It’s not like riding a horse,” Isaac told him, his voice a bit strained. “It’s like doing the splits. Pretty sure I’ll never be a father...”

Balthazaar let out a booming laugh, his round belly jigging beneath leather plates. “Ha! Join the club, boy!”

Elska was nearby, standing rigid and alert for danger. The handle of her warhammer rested on her shoulder. Her icy blue eyes glared at each wagon that passed, as if daring the passengers to challenge her. She heard Javaan’s hooves clomping up from behind, recognized the easy stride of his gait.

“Take it easy, Ellie. You look like you have a stick up your rear,” he told her as he ripped into a piece of jerky.

She corrected him bluntly, “My name is Elska.”

“Hm,” the other centaur chuckled, just a puff of air through his nostrils. “Must be jammed up further than I thought.”

Elska refused to look at him as she growled through her teeth, “Stop talking to me.”

“ _Stop talking to me_ ,” Javaan mocked in a low-pitched town, clapping his fingers together like a crab’s claw. He shoved the rest of the jerky into his mouth, spittle flying forth when he said, “Lighten up for once in your life. When will I see you smile, Ellie? I bet there’s a beautiful tauress under the rough, gritty husk.”

He strode up beside her, playfully bumping his equine hip against hers as he passed. Elska was having none of it. She reared up and shunted his behind with her equine chest. Javaan stumbled forward before toppling head-over-hoof onto the road.

“Don’t touch me, you swine!” she bellowed, punctuating herself with a stomp of her shaggy hoof.

“I was only teasing you! Trying to make you smile, that’s all!” shouted Javaan. He struggled back to his feet. “Gods, you’re the most ornery woman on all of Looming Gaia!”

“And you are Her most annoying pest!” Elska shouted back, stamping her hoof once more.

Jeimos and Linde watched the centaurs bicker from the cart. “My stars, there they go again...” sighed Jeimos, pouring water from their canteen into a cup. They held the cup in their palms, willing a magical flame forth to heat it before dropping a teabag inside. “Would you like some hot tea, Ms. Lumina?”

Linde poured a cup from her own canteen with a grin. “Thanks, but I prefer mine cold.” Glittery frost slowly crept from her gloved fingertips over the metal. The autumn air was bitter-cold, but the snow hadn’t come quite yet. The isanae were still biding their time in the clouds, waiting for the right time to attack.

The forest around them was made up of towering evergreens and naked birches. When the isanae touched ground, everything green would turn white, food would fall scarce, and the roads would become treacherous.

Alaine wished to finish this job before then, or else the trip home would be a gauntlet in itself. Ten minutes on the dot, she called from the front of the cart, “Alright, break’s over! Everyone regroup, let’s go!”

The crew obediently came together, mounting their mounts and clambering back into the cart. Alaine counted them as they arrived: Evan, Lukas, Jeimos, Isaac, Balthazaar, Javaan, Skel, Linde, Elska…Ten heads were present, including herself. Someone was missing.

“Damn it, where’s Glen?” she barked. The crew looked all around and called his name, but he was nowhere to be seen. After a few more minutes, Alaine jumped off the cart and grumbled, “Ugh! Slowpoke…” as she rounded the perimeter in search of him. She balled her fists and shouted into the forest, “ _Glen_!”

“I’m comin’, _stira_ , keep yer skirt on!” a faint voice called back. Alaine waited, tapping her foot impatiently as her portly, golden-haired crewman made his way out of the thicket.

“What were you doing out there—writing a novel? We gotta go!” she told him sharply, already hopping back in the cart.

Glenvar laboriously climbed into the back as he explained, “Aw, quit bustin’ my sack! There was a big camp out there. I just wanted to take a look…”

Whipping the reigns, Alaine guided the horses to move again. She glanced back at Glenvar and queried, “What kind of camp? Like, military?”

“Nah, looked civilian. Refugees or somethin’. Didn’t get a chance to ask ‘cause some harpy was screechin’ at me!”

Alaine rolled her eyes. Sitting beside her, Jeimos mentioned, “There has been a lot of outgoing traffic today. I do hope everything’s okay in Woodborne.”

“ _Nothing_ is okay in Woodborne,” replied Alaine. “Not while undines are farming the place for drones. We have to put a stop to it before the problem gets bigger than we can handle.” She paused for a moment, eyes hardened by painful memories.

Then she sighed, “If it hasn’t already…”

*

Jeimos hadn’t been wrong. It seemed Woodborne was in a quiet state of emergency when the mercenaries arrived. The outskirts of town were peppered by tents, supposedly those of refugees. They travelled the main road into the town proper, and the further they moved inward, the more barren the streets became. Even the beggars had abandoned their corners.

The few souls present were either Folkvar soldiers or, curiously, dorikori clad in familiar armor. The armor was made of black shark skin, fashioned into skirts that allowed the dorikori’s legs to fuse into a tail with ease. Their torsos were covered by plates of flexible green chitin, wearing helmets of the same material. The dorikori were mermaids like Alaine herself, specially trained in the art of combat.

“The Resistance,” Alaine muttered in disbelief, guiding the cart to a stop in the middle of the town plaza. It was an open space of ornate cobblestone with a great weeping willow in its center. On any other day, this plaza would be choked with musicians and foot traffic. Today, it was as quiet as a graveyard.

Alaine fished the stack of contracts out of her satchel and began doling them out to her crewmen. Each one had a different address on it, the homes of the missing children.

“Spread out and contact these families,” she told them. “Get as much information as you can. Elska, I want you to stay and guard the cart. We’ll regroup in a couple of hours.”

The crew obeyed. All but Elska quickly dispersed, including Alaine herself. The address on her contract was only a few blocks away. It was a short journey down a narrow, crooked street lined with decaying wooden buildings. Each building was packed so tightly together, she could scarcely squeeze herself through the alleys sideways. But before she arrived, she was stopped in her tracks, for she did not believe her eyes.

A Resistance dorikori was already talking to the family of the missing child. Her helmet dangled from her belt, exposing her shaven head and the little green scales on her face. That face, though Alaine hadn’t seen it in over a decade, was one she could never forget. If magical Alliance brainwashing couldn’t scrub it from her memory, surely time couldn’t either.

Alaine waited as the dorikori finished her conversation with the family. The tearful human man, woman, and adolescent boy then disappeared back into the house, the man slamming the door in his wake. The dorikori shook her head with a sigh and turned to walk further down the alley. A familiar voice stopped her.

“Deanne?”

Twitching with a start, the dorikori quickly whirled around to face Alaine. They stared at one another for what felt like an eternity. Then wide, toothy smiles spread across each of their faces. They squealed, rushing at eachother like two charging rams. They crashed together in a tight hug, spinning around in delight in the middle of the decrepit alley.

“Alaine! Wow, it’s been years!” Deanne laughed, squeezing her old friend tight.

“I know! What a small world!” said Alaine. “The last time I saw you was...well, when we took out that Alliance base at Gryphon Bay, right?”

Deanne smiled. “That was the day you returned my name to me. I’ll never forget it.”

“I see you’re still with the Resistance,” mentioned Alaine, gesturing to Deanne’s green and black armor. “What are you guys doing here?”

Deanne let out a little sigh, rubbing at her scaly face. “At the moment, we’re just trying to evacuate the town. But _some_ people don’t want to leave…” She swept her hand towards the house behind her. “Idiots…Whatever. It’s their funeral.”

A crease formed between Alaine’s brows. “Why? What’s going on here? We noticed tons of tents when we came through.”

“Those tents belong to the smart ones. We told them to move inland until the threat is gone.” Deanne planted her hands on her hips, shifting her weight to her other leg. She looked weary as if she’d been standing all day. “Roach got word that an Alliance army was heading this direction. It’s been a nightmare convincing Woodborne Guard that we aren’t part of that mess…”

“Oh no,” groaned Alaine. “What does the Sovereign want with this podunk little town? He must really be getting bored.”

Deanne almost chuckled, but her eyes were haggard. “Mr. Ocean thinks they’re trying to establish a dorikori farm here. The waters around Evik are so polluted, they can’t get a hold on its shorelines anymore.”

She sighed. “So, I suppose they’re focusing on Noalen now. Which is pretty moronic, if you ask me. Evangelites and Folkvaran aren’t the ones dumping plastic into Aquarian mouths…”

Alaine plucked the contract from her satchel. She handed it to Deanne and said, “Look at this. My crew got over twenty of these contracts this week alone.”

Deanne’s eyes quickly skimmed the page. “You’re still a mercenary then?” she queried.

Alaine shrugged, replied, “Better than being a bar wench.”

“Well, this is definitely undine meddling if I’ve ever seen it,” Deanne told her, slapping the paper with the back of her hand. She passed it back to Alaine and went on, “We know the Sovereign already has some small outposts established here. We took out a few of them when we arrived. But he’ll be sending the big boys soon, so we need to get everything in order as quickly as possible.”

Alaine grabbed her shoulder. “Let us help,” she said. “There are eleven of us total. But we have a couple centaurs, so really, it’s like fifty of us.”

Deanne’s hairless brows arched. “Alaine, the gods must have sent you themselves! Come on, I’ll take you to Mr. Ocean. We need all the help we can get.”

*

Though the rest of Woodborne was a ghost town, the bathhouse was busier than ever. Deanne opened the heavy door and hot steam billowed out. Through the steamy haze, she and Alaine saw several dozen dorikori crowding the place. Their chatter and laughter echoed off the stone walls.

Lowly goblin attendants rushed to and fro, delivering soap, towels, and buckets of water wherever they were needed. The room was spacious, with several round ceramic tubs embedded into the floors. Each one was stuffed with mermaids, dressed down to nothing in their scaly aquatic forms. Soap bubbles floated through the air. Alaine winced when one popped against her eye.

“The beach isn’t safe, so we’ve been staying hydrated here,” Deanne explained as she led Alaine across the room. They pushed through a crowd of naked dorikori, standing around in their terrestrial forms. They spoke loudly and swayed as if they’d been drinking, but Alaine smelled no alcohol when she passed them. All her nose could detect was the overpowering fragrance of soap.

Deanne led Alaine to a tub in the back of the room. It was twice as large as the others and quite a bit fancier. Obviously it was reserved for special guests, but all Alaine saw sitting in it were five dorikori in their terrestrial forms.

Towels were wrapped around their heads, protecting their short hair from getting wet, or else they would change into their legless aquatic forms. Alaine did the same when she bathed, for transforming was a nuisance when she was trying to wash her feet.

The water in this tub was opaque with a thick layer of suds. Curiously, the suds were a bright green color, sparkling like snow. Alaine wondered if this was some type of luxury soap until she noticed that the dorikori’s eyes were glowing bright green as well.

Even the insides of their mouths and nostrils were glowing through the haze of steam. Each of them was squirming and laughing wildly as if they were being tickled by some unseen force.

“Where is—” Alaine began, then cut her question short as a tentacle shot out of the water. It wrapped around a dorikori’s shoulder and pulled her under. Her towel floated to the surface, a white light flashing in the water as she transformed. She surfaced again, but now her once brown face was scaly as a fish and green as the suds.

“You horrible tease! I was sooo close!” she cried through her seemingly drunken laughter. Then she reached deep into the tub, and with a mighty heave, pulled a cecaelia up from the depths.

Alaine recognized him immediately. It was hard to mistake those sunken cheeks, that long nose, and that sagging, sad-looking brow for anyone else but Mr. Ocean.

It was only his eyes she didn’t recognize. She swore they were yellow the last time they met, but now they were glowing bright green just like those of the dorikori. He flexed the gills on his neck and sparkling, green water gushed from them, spraying his bathmates. He steadied his hand on the edge of the tub and swayed a little, apparently no less drunk than they were.

Several of his tentacles rose from the water and wrapped around the dorikori, pulling them into his embrace. They shrieked with delight, began to kiss, lick, and caress him, and Alaine was left to stand there and wonder what kind of bizarre, drunken orgy she just walked into.

Deanne kneeled at the tub’s edge and addressed her leader, “Mr. Ocean?”

Her voice fell on deaf ears. The cecaelia didn’t even acknowledge her as he returned the kisses of the mermaids around him.

“Mr. Ocean!” Deanne addressed him with greater volume, tapping the top of his smooth head. “Please, I need to talk to you! It’s an urgent matter!”

The cecaelia finally turned to face Deanne, his lips separating from a mermaid’s with a wet pop. He had two sets of eyelids, and all four of them blinked out of tandem as his eyes struggled to focus. “Who…?” he groaned, letting his head drop to the side as if it was too heavy for his neck.

“I need to talk to you,” Deanne repeated slowly, “about the battle. The Freelance Good Guys are offering their assistance again.”

The dorikori in the bath quieted. Mr. Ocean furrowed his brow, silently swaying side to side for a moment.

Then he closed his eyes and admitted defeat, “I’m…too green now. Much too green. Tell the Commander.”

With that said, his bathmates resumed their playful laughter and piled on him at once, dragging him down into the water. Alaine jumped back, landing just out of the splash zone. Deanne wasn’t so lucky. She snatched a dry towel from a soldier nearby and wiped the water off her armor before returning it.

She beckoned Alaine to follow her outside. “Sorry about that,” she apologized sheepishly after she closed the door behind her. “He, uh…must be off-duty. Let’s go talk to Commander Roach. I can’t imagine he’d say ‘no’.”

“Deanne, what was going _on_ in there?” asked Alaine. “Are you guys okay?”

Her friend offered a weary smile back as she replied, “Of course we’re _okay_! What are you talking about?”

“Everyone’s eyes,” Alaine clarified, gesturing to her own, “they looked all green and weird. Are they under a spell?”

“No, no,” Deanne said quickly. The two rounded a corner, heading down a new road. They could see the docks ahead, and beyond that, the blue horizon of the sea. Deanne continued, “They just soaked in greenlite a little too long, that’s all.”

“Greenlite…” Alaine repeated, racking her brain for the memory. The last time she heard that word was over a decade ago, when she first met Mr. Ocean in the belly of a floeback whale.

Yes, she recalled greenlite. The Resistance soldiers smeared it on their skin and had some kind of revel. Alaine took no part in it then, and she still wasn’t regretting it now.

“It’s just a potion,” explained Deanne. “Mr. Ocean uses it to protect us. If you bathe in the greenlite, the undine’s songs can’t control you.”

Alaine queried doubtfully, “It looked like they could barely control _themselves_. Why were they acting so drunk?”

“Because just like anything, you can over-indulge in it,” Deanne told her flatly.

“And Mr. Ocean is complicit in that?”

Deanne stopped walking for just a brief moment. She looked as if she was about to speak, then shook her head and moved forward once more. She chose her next words carefully, then said, “He’s not our _master_ , Alaine. He really doesn’t have that much authority over us. Our reasons are our own, but at the end of the day, everyone in the Resistance just wants to take down the Alliance.”

“And you think you can’t do that without serving Mr. Ocean,” guessed Alaine.

“He’s the only one who stands a fighting chance against the Sovereign. And I told you, we don’t _serve_ him. If we all decided to leave him tomorrow, he wouldn’t do a thing to stop us.”

“So leave,” said Alaine. “Start your own resistance. You’re smart, you could be the leader.”

Turning on her heel, Deanne walked backwards to face her friend. “You _still_ don’t trust Aquarians, do you?” she asked.

Alaine rolled her eyes and replied, “Well, forgive me for being a _teensy bit_ suspicious after what we went through! How can you be sure he hasn’t enthralled you? What if you’re his thrall right now and you don’t even know it?”

“That’s ridiculous, Alaine.”

“Is it though? Think about it: an ancient, powerful wizard is bathing you in magic medicine and sending you out to fight his battles. Like, why? What’s his motivation for protecting Terria at all? He’s an Aquarian, Deanne! Why would he give a damn about Terrians unless he was exploiting them in some way?”

“I don’t know his motives,” admitted Deanne, “and frankly, it’s none of my business. But I do know that he needs our help as much as we need his. His medicine protects us from the undine, and we protect him from the Sovereign in return. The benefits are mutual; we aren’t slaves to a greedy overlord like the Alliance dorikori. We’re here because we _choose_ to be. Why can’t you understand that?”

Alaine sucked in a breath to shout. Then she bit her tongue, took a deep breath and replied quietly, stiffly, “Because I remember a life that you can’t. I remember what it’s like to be a human—a Terrian—and I remember how it felt to be under the Aquarians’ spell. It’s so insidious, Deanne. You don’t even know you’re a thrall until something snaps you out of it. _If_ something snaps you out of it.”

She took her old friend’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “I care about you. That’s all,” she said softly, trying to conceal the pain on her face. Deanne looked back at her, walking hand-in-hand like they did when crossing the precarious bridges of Laraine.

But Deanne didn’t remember that. She didn’t remember Laraine, nor her friendship with Alaine, nor her childhood or her time as a human at all.

Ten years ago, Alaine left the safety of the Resistance in search of their names. Deanne—known then by her Alliance drone-name, “Mari”—never expected to see her again.

Then two years later, she appeared in Deanne’s life once more as a mercenary and fought by her side at the Battle of Gryphon Bay. She brought with her Mari’s true human name: Deanne DuPont. But she could not return her childhood. She could not return Deanne’s memories like the Divines of the Sea had so graciously done for her.

So Deanne just had to take her word for it when Alaine told her that their friendship extended far beyond their time together in Alliance slavery. It was Alaine who rescued her from that slavery. Deanne would never forget that, at least.

The two arrived at the docks. Here the wind was strong and the air was cold, but Aquarians like themselves tolerated the cold much better than Terrians. Alaine was simply clad in her armored dragonscale skirt with boots on her feet, her torso protected by plates of leather. Her helmet dangled at her hip, made of the same leather.

Folkvaran warships bobbed in the ocean ahead, guarding Woodborne’s port. Their bows were carved into fearsome dragon heads, making them look like great, wooden leviathans ready to attack. Their many blood-red sails depicted horned skulls.

The docks were bustling compared to the rest of the town. Resistance soldiers and Folkvaran soldiers alike rushed to and fro with loads of weapons and supplies. Deanne and Alaine walked down a long dock that stretched out to a warship floating in the deep water.

There stood a walking cecaelia, deep blue of flesh with black stripes covering his body. When he turned to face them, Alaine recognized the black stripe stretching horizontally across his eyes, reminding her of a bandit’s mask. A silver fishing hook was pierced through one of his nostrils.

“Dorikori Deanne,” he greeted before they even arrived, “has everyone been evacuated?”

“Still working on it,” Deanne reported. She stopped before him and clapped a hand on Alaine’s leather pauldron. “But I have good news: the Freelance Good Guys are here and they’re willing to join the fight. They have a strong eleven in their crew.”

Roach towered over the mermaids by half their length, casting a shadow over them as he looked Alaine up and down. He was armored in a scaled sash and a belt full of weapons.

He paused for a moment, then arched his brows and exclaimed, “Oh, it’s you! The stubborn little mermaid who found her name! It’s been quite some time, hasn’t it?”

“A few years,” Alaine grinned.

“You and yours turned the tide at Gryphon Bay,” the cecaelia went on. “If it’s alright with Mr. Ocean, I’d be honored to have you fighting by our side once again.”

“Mr. Ocean is, uh…preoccupied at the moment,” said Deanne, clearing her throat. “Can you give Alaine a quick briefing?”

Roach gestured to the warship looming behind them. “Gladly. Folkvar Kingdom is already at war with the Evangelites. Their military is stretched too thin to deal with the Sovereign on top of that, so we’re here to keep him humble. If he captures Woodborne, the rest of Noalen’s coast will follow.”

“Mr. Ocean has gathered the entire Resistance army here,” added Deanne. “If we lose this battle, we lose everything.”

Roach nodded towards her and said, “Possibly. But we have the Woodborne Guard on our side and a decent battalion of Folkvaran soldiers. Last I heard, Sovereign was sending an army about one thousand strong. We have almost equal numbers and a home advantage, but I think it’s still going to be a very close fight.”

Resting a hand on her hip, Alaine asked, “So, what’s your strategy?”

“I’ll be discussing that with Mr. Ocean tonight,” said Roach. “Latest intel says we have about three days before Sovereign’s forces arrive. If you want to help, I suggest you and your crew use that time wisely.”

With that, the cecaelia took his leave, lumbering up the long ramp to the warship. Alaine turned back to Deanne.

“Well,” she said, “guess we should brush up on our training, huh?”

*

Few inns were still operating in Woodborne. Owners, barkeepers, and wenches alike had chosen to leave town until the Alliance threat had passed. It was no concern for the Freelance Good Guys, who simply unpacked their supplies from the cart and began pitching tents in the refugees’ shantytown.

Whether the children were found or not, whether they completed or failed their mission, they chose to take part in this fight. Woodborne was the closest city to Drifter’s Hollow. If something were to threaten Woodborne, it wouldn’t be long before the Hollow was in danger too.

“It’s our duty to protect this place,” Evan explained to the crew. “Our company uses the Woodborne post, mind you. The longer our mail gets disrupted, the less contracts we get. No contracts means no gold.”

The explanation was enough to soothe their griping, at least for the moment. All eleven of them sat around a crackling fire pit. The sky above was darkening, the air misty with the faintest hint of rain. Their tents were lined up in a semi-circle nearby with their cart, horses, and Shadow. The roc was sitting in the cart like a hen in its nestbox.

Lukas slowly turned a sharpened stick over the fire. A fat locust was pierced onto the end. When the locust was roasted to his liking, he bit it off the stick and immediately regretted it, frantically fanning his burning tongue with his hand.

Never one to get his hands dirty, Skel lifted a piece of wood with his telekinesis and dropped it onto the fire. It seemed Elska had the same idea, for she returned from the forest with a heavy log on her shoulder and tossed it on the ground beside him. Mud splashed up on impact, splattering Skel’s pristine robes.

As Balthazaar and Evan chopped the great log into pieces, Glenvar poured a bucket of water into the iron pot hanging over the fire. If they were to fight a battle soon, they had to feed themselves properly beforehand. To the boiling water he added dry noodles. He drained the water off when the noodles softened, then stirred in oil and a mix of spices. When no one was looking, he added a splash of alcohol from his flask.

By then, the skinned hares skewered beside the pot were finished roasting. Evan stopped chopping wood to wipe the sweat from his brow, then he asked Glenvar, “Want help with that, friend?”

Glenvar waved a hand at him, “I don’t want none of ya dogs touchin’ this grub unless yer puttin’ it in your mouths! Let the master run his forge, eh?”

He removed the meat from the skewers and laid each slab over a stump. Then he swiped the war axe from his hip and began chopping it to pieces. Chunks of bone and crispy flesh splattered every which way.

As much as the others wanted to tease him, they knew they had no right. Despite his barbaric Halostiran ways, Glenvar was still the best chef on their crew by far. When all was said and done, they each had a gourd skin stuffed with good food.

“I made spiced noodles to warm ya up,” Glenvar said as he passed the bowls around, “hare meat fer protein, and mushrooms to keep things movin’, if ya know what I mean…”

Eleven cups were lined up on the stump. Glenvar uncorked a large glass jug, began filling the cups as he finished, “…and of course, some good Folkvaran mead to wash it all down. Now pay yer tribute to the stars and eat up, ya mongrels!”

That was the small price the crew paid to enjoy Glenvar’s cooking: they had to pray to the celestials beforehand, otherwise he’d snatch the food away from them and eat it himself.

Glenvar was the only Sylvanist in the crew. Still the others indulged his faith and tossed a pinch of their hare meat into the fire. Glenvar’s people—the Halostiran _Maskamar_ —believed that by burning a piece of the animal they killed, they were sending its soul up to the stars where it belonged.

“Thanks for the grub, stars,” Isaac told the darkening sky, and then he started shoveling food into his mouth with the rest of them. They used fine wooden utensils to eat, each one custom-made with their names engraved on the handles. The utensils were from Jelani, another gift he mailed all the way from Uekoro to reignite Evan’s affections.

Alaine rested on her scaly knees, looking around at her crew as she chewed her food. Her eyes rested upon each of their faces for a long moment, admiring them for the people they were and remembering all the adventures she’d shared with them.

Perhaps they didn’t always get along. She’d blackened many of their eyes in drunken scuffles more than once. But at the end of the day, their lives were in her hands, and her life was in theirs. She knew she could count on them in dire times, and this upcoming battle with the Alliance was dire indeed.

The crew took many contracts from all over the world. They did everything from rescuing captives to slaying magical beasts in exchange for a little gold. But they never accepted a contract unless they were ninety-nine percent sure they would come out of it alive. Never one hundred percent, because “Nothing in life is certain,” as Evan liked to say.

Alaine’s gut seized up the moment Roach mentioned the Alliance’s plans for Woodborne, so tightly that she could hardly finish the sumptuous meal before her. This may just be that one percent they couldn’t handle, she thought, and the dread crawled up her spine like a horde of spiders.

There was no room for error. If she wasn’t a competent leader, she might lose someone. She might lose _everyone_. Could she really cope with that again after losing Laraine and all she knew before?

Oh, why did Evan ask her to be the captain? Her mind was never this busy when he was in charge! This must be the way he felt all the time, she thought, and for that she pitied him.

*

The next morning, the Freelance Good Guys chewed through their breakfast of porridge and biscuits, and then Alaine ordered them all to practice their combat training. “No breaks until I get back,” she told them.

She took off into town, clad in her usual armor with her spear on her back and three knives hidden on her person. Her helmet protected her from the rain, falling from the gray sky above. Darker, heavier clouds loomed further on the horizon.

Alaine reached the bathhouse close to high sun. Supposedly the Oceanic Resistance was treating it like an inn. Sure enough, it was just as busy as it had been the day before, stuffed wall-to-wall with chattering dorikori and the goblin attendants frantically serving them.

Making her way through the hot, crowded interior, Alaine scooted passed mobs of mermaids and tried not to slip on the soapy floor. The water in one of the small baths, she noticed, was tinged green. It was fully occupied by three dorikori, yet three more were trying to fight their way in. One dorikori on the outside seized another on the inside by her neck and yanked her out of the water.

Quickly she jumped into the bath, but only for a second before another dorikori was trying to pull her out again. Alaine stopped to watch the dispute, furrowing her brows in concern.

Alliance dorikori never behaved this way. They were like ants—obedient, efficient drones who did only what they were told. They did not fight amongst themselves, did not act so irrationally like the Resistance dorikori.

Were these mermaids simply reveling in their liberation? Alaine had her doubts as she watched one punch another in the face just for a seat in the bath. It wasn’t about the bath, that much was obvious. Something was very wrong.

She moved on through the spacious room, noticing more baths tainted with greenlite. The further she ventured towards the back of the bathhouse, the more tainted the baths became, until she couldn’t avoid stepping in puddles of slimy, green water and equally green suds overflowing from them.

She pushed through another mob of distressed dorikori and gasped at the sight beyond them. The largest, fanciest bath stood right where it had yesterday, except now its water was almost entirely opaque with green ooze. The ooze was splattered everywhere around the tub, staining the floors, walls, and even the ceiling above. It put Alaine in mind of a violent crime scene, had the victim been a green-blooded spriggan.

But there were no spriggans to be found here. Only a half-dozen dorikori, lying motionless or slowly writhing in the goop. Their eyes lit up like green fireflies, their mouths and nostrils glowing much the same way. Alaine stood before them, frozen in horror and confusion. She was afraid to venture further, afraid to touch this terrible ooze herself.

She witnessed one of the motionless dorikori twitch. Her twitches escalated to convulsions, and then green liquid sprayed from her mouth and nose. She flailed on the floor, choking and gagging, and no one seemed eager to help.

Consequences be damned, Alaine rushed forth to her rescue. She kneeled beside the sick dorikori and slung her body over her shoulder. She forcefully patted her back and muttered, “What’s wrong with you? Oh, god, what’s wrong with you? What is all this…?”

The sickly soldier lurched, spraying more ooze from her face. Shortly after, she scrambled out of Alaine’s grip, gasping for air. Her eyes blinked rapidly, darting about like the eyes of a frightened animal. Their glow had disappeared and exposed their true blue color.

Alaine raised her palms and assured her, “It’s okay! Y-you were choking, I just—”

“You bitch! That stuff was mine!” the dorikori snarled and struck her across the face. The force sent Alaine toppling down onto the floor of ooze. She tried to catch herself with her palms, but they slipped forward and she landed on her forearms.

Horrified, Alaine flailed and slipped as if she were on ice, until she was finally back on her feet. She watched her assailant crawl towards the pool—the epicenter of this gooey mess—and plunge into it head-first. She disappeared completely in its depths.

Alaine frantically swiped at her forearms, wiping her palms on her armor, but the ooze was as sticky as blood. She discovered the stuff staining her legs as well and realized she was wasting her time.

Furious, she clenched her fists and shouted, “ _Mr. Ocean_!”

Her voice blasted through the bathhouse like a bomb. The chattering, laughing dorikori fell silent and turned her way. Alaine’s eyes darted over each of their faces, their glowing, green eyes boring into her soul. She felt like she was surrounded by zombies.

She shouted at them, “Where is Mr. Ocean? Bring him to me _now_!” The dorikori didn’t budge. But they didn’t have to, for the bath of ooze began to bubble and churn, and a cecaelia slowly rose up from its depths.

He swayed back and forth, eyes glowing bright like the others. Several of his tentacles rose from the tainted water and slapped against the edge of the bath as he pulled himself towards Alaine.

He slumped down at the bath’s edge. His four eyelids blinked out of sync as he focused on Alaine. She had never known a cecaelia to smile. But that’s exactly what he did when he saw her, exposing the glowing flesh of his mouth and two rows of jagged, pointed teeth.

“Me?” he queried, slapping a hand to his chest.

Alaine thrust a finger at him and growled, “Yes, I’ve been looking for _you_! What on Gaia is going on here? The Alliance is on their way with a thousand-unit army and you’re—you’re not even—you’re just—”

She tripped over her own words, her own befuddlement overwhelming her brain. She could only hope the greenlite wasn’t taking hold. She lost her patience, spread her arms and simply wailed, “What is all this nasty green shit?”

“Aaaaah,” Mr. Ocean groaned, as if he had an epiphany and lost his train of thought at the same time. Clumsily he pulled himself out of the bath, slopping the tainted ooze-water all around. Alaine took a step back as he rose up to a standing position. His two-toed feet remained planted on the floor, but his torso swayed rhythmically side to side, his skirt of tentacles swirling back and forth around his ankles.

His voice was as throaty as she remembered, but his speech was slow, inflection chaotic as he explained, “The greenlite is a potion. I made it for you! So take it, take all you want!”

Alaine quirked her scaly brow. “You made this stuff?”

The cecaelia’s head bobbed up and down. He was probably trying to nod, but all Alaine saw was someone dancing to a rhythm in their head. “I made the greenlite, and then it made me,” said. “It grew inside me, infected me like the floeback. Gods rest her soul…”

Alaine seized his long beard of tentacles and yanked his face down to her level. “You better start making sense,” she told him flatly, “or I’ll make you regret ever saving me from the Alliance.”

Mr. Ocean’s intoxicated smile remained as he raised his palms in surrender. She released his beard and he explained slowly, “A poison grows inside me. A toxic fungus. It must be purged or I will die!”

He wobbled, nearly fell over as he gestured to the bath behind him. “My body fights it. Pushes it through the skin. Then the water is green—green and magical! A potion for mermaids!” He grinned his alien grin, cupping the sides of Alaine’s face in his palms. “Don’t fear the greenlite, little friend. It keeps you safe.”

“Ugh, don’t touch me!” barked Alaine, jerking her face from his hands and slapping them down for good measure. “If I’m understanding this right—and I have my doubts—you’re saying you have some kind of…of _fungal infection_ that makes you sweat out this green crap?”

“Yes, yes, you understand!” Mr. Ocean replied, clasping his hands together with delight.

Alaine fell silent for a moment, piecing everything together in her head. Deanne told her yesterday that the greenlite somehow protected the mermaids from the undine’s song. Today, she witnessed mermaids nearly killing eachother to bathe in it.

She swept her hand towards one of the dorikori, lying motionless in the ooze. “Mr. Ocean, do you realize that your disgusting fungus-sweat is poisoning your own army? For gods’ sakes—look at them! How can they fight the Alliance when they’re all gorked out like this?”

Waving his hand dismissively, Mr. Ocean assured her, “The potion can’t kill them. They only sleep, at worst. It’s the raw fungus they mustn’t eat, mustn’t touch.”

“That’s not what I asked!” growled Alaine, stamping her foot. “Roach said the Alliance’s army will be here in two days! _What_ are you doing to prepare? _How_ are you planning to defeat them? Because right now, all you have is an army of dumb zombies who would sooner fight eachother than the enemy!”

Of all the ways to respond, Mr. Ocean _laughed_. It was a raspy, gurgling kind of sound that only an Aquarian could produce, and it made Alaine’s blood boil. Her fists quaked at her sides, itching to knock those pointed teeth down his throat.

“You think this is a joke?” she seethed. “Mr. Ocean, have you lost your mind? All of Terria is in danger!”

The cecaelia’s laughter quieted. He reached out and patted her helmet like a dog, a pet, a foolish child. “Little mermaid, you’re speaking to a moonlight creature in sunlight hours. I don’t even care who you are. I don’t even know why I’m here!”

He seized Alaine’s shoulders, turning her around to usher her away. “Allow me a full day’s rest before challenging my head this way. If you want to talk war, talk to the Commander. I don’t care for violence.”

With that, he shoved her away and then whirled around, staggering back to the pool. He let himself drop bonelessly into the infected water. It rippled like syrup and quickly settled.

Alaine wasn’t about to reach into that mess and demand further attention from him. She’d been exposed to enough greenlite today. If Roach was in the bathhouse, he would have stuck out like a sore thumb among all the dorikori. Obviously he wasn’t here, so Alaine figured she would search the docks where she’d seen him last. He surely had a lot of business to settle with the Folkvaran navy.

She pushed through the crowd of dorikori once again. She didn’t get far before she spotted a familiar face. It was none other than Deanne, kneeling on the floor before a puddle of greenlite-infected water.

She smeared her hands in the shallow puddle and rubbed them over her face, smearing the water down her neck and over her shoulders. She was dressed down in white undergarments, stained with greenlite residue.

“Deanne!” exclaimed Alaine, rushing towards her friend. “Oh no, not you too! What are you doing? Get off the floor, you look like a junkie!”

Deanne looked up at her. Her eyes, predictably, were glowing bright. She regarded Alaine with a panicked expression as she hunched over the puddle and said, “Don’t take it from me! Stay back! Don’t touch it, it’s mine!”

“Do you hear yourself? It’s filthy fungus-water!” shouted Alaine.

Deanne sopped up more of the puddle with her hands and rubbed them down her limbs. “I need it,” she insisted. “The greenlite protects us. We’ll become slaves to the Alliance without it!”

“You’re already slaves to the damn Resistance and you don’t even know it!” Alaine growled through her teeth. She seized Deanne by the wrist and pulled her into a chokehold.

Deanne struggled in her grip, accomplishing little in her intoxicated state. “Don’t!” she rasped. “The undine are coming! I need my bath!”

“Oh, I have a bath for you right here!” grunted Alaine, quickly dragging her towards Mr. Ocean’s pool. She heaved Deanne forward, sending her splashing down into the ooze, surely right on top of Mr. Ocean.

In seconds, Mr. Ocean surfaced again, looking quite groggy and confused. Deanne was cradled in his arms. She had shifted into her aquatic form, her flesh as green as the ooze she sputtered up. The cecaelia watched Alaine storm off and disappear into his crowd of intoxicated, green-eyed soldiers.

*


	2. The Battle For Woodborne

**[CHAPTER 2: THE BATTLE FOR WOODBORNE]**

Alaine searched all of Woodborne, but Roach was nowhere to be found. He must have boarded one of the war ships floating in the port, she reasoned, and reluctantly returned to camp. A true shame, because it seemed he was the only one in their faction with a brain in his head. The Resistance was useless. They had no strategy, no plan, no sense at all!

The daylight hours soon came to an end. Now the rain was beating the top of Alaine’s tent, so savage and deafening that she couldn’t get to sleep. Rain always made her nervous. It reminded her of growing up in Laraine, of the quiet panic in her mother and father as they chained the door shut and tucked her in for the night.

Her father sang a little song for her every night since she was born, praying that it would somehow protect her from the undine’s call.

Alaine lie awake in her bedroll, Aquarian eyes staring through the darkness at the canvas ceiling. There were never enough tents to go around, so Jeimos was sentenced to sleep beside her. She tried not to wake them as she whispered her father’s song,

“ _Alaine Fontaine of Laraine,_

_Beware, beware the arcane,_

_It drives you insane when it sings in the rain,_

_The ugly, the evil undine_!”

Tears welled in the corners of her eyes. She closed them and whispered to herself, “That last part didn’t rhyme…must you—“

“Must you always complain?”

Alaine’s eyes snapped open, wide and glistening. Jeimos was awake after all, offering an uncertain smile. She thought for sure they wouldn’t hear her over the heavy rainfall, but once again, she underestimated the power of elven ears.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said quietly.

Jeimos yawned and replied, “Don’t fret. I was never asleep in the first place. I’m so nervous about the battle, Alaine. Er, Captain. Sorry.”

Alaine smiled a little. “I like ‘Alaine’ better.” She paused for a moment, then sighed, “I’m no captain. To be totally honest, I…I’m nervous too.”

“I can tell.”

The mermaid’s brow sagged. “You can? Oh no, the crew probably has no faith in me!”

“I doubt they can see it like I can,” Jeimos told her quickly. “If anyone knows anxiety, it’s Jeimos Paramonimos…”

The two lied there in silence for some time, listening to the rain pummeling their tent. Jeimos glanced over at Alaine. Their orange elven eyes could see in the darkness, though not as well as a mermaid’s. They could still make out the stiff, wide-eyed expression on her face, noticed the subtle quiver in her hands folded over her belly.

Jeimos reached out and pried one of those hands away, giving it a gentle squeeze as they began to sing to her,

_“Alaine Fontaine of Laraine,_

_Beware, beware the arcane,_

_It drives you insane when it sings in the rain,_

_The ugly, the evil undine,_

_Alaine Fontaine of Laraine,_

_Heart bigger than her brain,_

_Battled the ocean and caused a commotion,_

_Then her life was on a chain…”_

They felt Alaine’s hand squeeze back, then she began to sing along,

_“Alaine Fontaine of Laraine,_

_Was sure she’d lost her name,_

_Now forced to slay as a thrall of the fae,_

_Would she ever be the same?_

_But Alaine Fontaine of Laraine,_

_Could never be contained,_

_She broke free from her spell, escaped from her hell,_

_And betrayed the Sov-er-eign…”_

Jeimos fell silent, leaving Alaine to sing the last stanza on her own,

_“I am Alaine Fontaine of Laraine,_

_And my heart has been unchained,_

_I’m free from the sea, to be what I’ll be,_

_Albeit a little…crazy!”_

The elf smiled. “That last part didn’t rhyme,” they said.

Alaine smiled back and finished,

“ _Alaine Fontaine of Laraine,_

_Her last line didn’t rhyme,_

_Does it drive you insane, enough to complain?_

_Well, she hears it all the—“_

A loud sound suddenly boomed in the distance. Alaine and Jeimos froze, listening closely. A chorus of feminine voices swelled, their melodic song cutting through the drone of rain. Alaine’s brow wrinkled as she studied it. They were not the voices of undine, but those of…

“Sirenes!” she hissed, swiping the bag of armor beside her. “Suit up, Jay!”

As the two scrambled into their respective armor and robes, they could hear a swell of panicked refugees outside. Among them were the voices of their crewmen. Fully armored, Alaine rushed outside. The men of her crew were staggering out of their tents, holding their heads and moaning in agony.

Lukas fell to his knees in the mud before her, grasping desperately at her sharkskin skirt. “Sirene song…it hurts…!” he grunted through gnashed teeth. Blood trickled from his nostril and the pouring rain quickly washed it down his face.

Alaine looked around at the camp, at all the groaning men and the confused women trying to help them. She turned back to Lukas, gave his shoulders a shake and told him, “Fight it, Luke!” Then she rose up and called to everyone her voice would reach, “It’s an echomaji attack! Cover your ears and scream! You have to drown it out—it won’t last long!”

Desperate for relief, the men fulfilled her silly order without question. Hundreds of masculine screams quickly overpowered the sirenes’ cruel melody. The relief came instantly. Lukas felt the stabbing pain in his head subside, and then he screamed his way back to his tent. Their throats were raw by the time they armored and armed themselves, but then, so were the throats of the sirenes.

Their magical voices went quiet for the moment, but the sound of chaos was only growing louder in Woodborne. Loud flashes lit up the sky like lightning, followed by loud booms that surely could not be thunder. The refugees stayed behind in fear as the Freelance Good Guys charged towards the madness.

Alaine mounted her horse and sped forth, Shadow flying above with Isaac in her saddle. Linde and Skel shared one horse between them with Skel at the reigns. Evan and Lukas shared Evan’s mighty draft horse. Lukas stood on its rear with cat-like balance, his bow nocked and ready to fire at the first enemy he saw.

Balthazaar rode upon Javaan’s back as Elska looked on with disgust, ever in disbelief that a centaur would let a human use them as a beast of burden. She charged alone with nothing but her long warhammer, flanking Alaine who led them all to battle.

Before they arrived in the town proper, Alaine already knew this was an Alliance attack. She could tell by the stench of wet garbage wafting through the air, only getting stronger the closer they got.

The crew moved down the main street in the box formation they practiced yesterday. The biggest and strongest of them—Evan and Lukas, Elska, Javaan and Balthazaar—made up the front of the box just behind Alaine, shielding the frail spellcasters in back. They passed dozens of Folkvaran soldiers and town militiamen shouting and rushing around on every street.

Both the soldiers and militia were easy to identify in their red cloaks and sashes. They all seemed to be hurrying towards the docks, so Alaine and her crew followed. They saw piles of trash strewn around, so thick across some streets that they had no choice but to step on it. Alaine’s keen eyes spotted something shoot out of the sea in the distance.

It was some kind of giant ball sailing through the dark sky. “Scatter! Move!” she shouted, and her crew dispersed before a massive bubble of seawater struck the ground between them. The bubble was stuffed with trash, and it exploded out like shrapnel on impact. Alaine’s horse collapsed with a bray as it was hit in the leg by a log of rusted metal.

Alaine hit the street with it, splashing into filthy flood-waters. Her helmet protected her hair, preventing an unwanted transformation, and Balthazaar was able to swipe her off the ground as he passed. He pulled her into Javaan’s saddle, sandwiching her between himself and the centaur’s humanoid back.

They carried her into the town plaza, where she dismounted and assessed the situation. From this open area she could see the entirety of the docks and the port further down the hill. She jumped at another loud boom. It came from one of the Folkvaran warships floating in the port. The leviathan ship was firing its cannons at some unseen target in the sea.

Soldiers and militiamen were organizing near the docks, forming a defensive line to block access to the town. If the Alliance really was throwing a thousand-unit army at this, then Woodborne’s defenders would be crushed in minutes. Alaine turned all around, finding no further reinforcements in sight.

She balled her fists and shouted, “Where is the fucking Resistance?” She turned to her crew, eyes wide and desperate. “Did you guys see them anywhere?”

They all hesitated. Evan told her regretfully, “Haven’t spotted a single one.”

“I thought we had another day to prepare for this, at least!” cried Jeimos, sitting lone atop their black horse. “Perhaps they’re still organizing and they’ll arrive soon?”

Alaine looked up at the sky. Shadow was nearly invisible to Terrian eyes, but she could see the roc soaring through the dark clouds with ease. Shadow made wide circles around the area, then perched atop the willow tree in the plaza.

Isaac looked down at the crew from her back. He pushed his flight goggles to his head, the lenses obscured by raindrops, and reported, “There’s a huge light under the sea! It’s coming towards Woodborne and it’s moving fast!”

“Shit,” hissed Alaine. She rubbed at her wet face as she tried to decide their next move. If the Resistance didn’t turn up soon, the battle was a wash. They’d all be killed for certain and Woodborne would be claimed by the Sovereign.

They couldn’t warn Drifter’s Hollow of the encroaching Alliance menace if they were all dead. If they fled now, she thought, they may be able to evacuate the village in time and cut their losses.

A bright light caught her attention. It appeared as if the sun was rising over the horizon of the sea—but no, it was shining below the water itself. The warships fired their cannons at it. The light was undeterred. It drifted below the largest ship, then two great stalks shot out of the water. They were long, massive tentacles, so large that they wrapped around the entirety of the ship and squeezed it tightly.

The line of soldiers watched in awe and horror as the huge wooden vessel was rocked back and forth. Cannons continued to fire with immense, echoing booms. The tentacles squeezed tighter. The boards of the ship began to give, creaking and groaning under the pressure.

Finally a great fault opened in its hull. Panicked shouts swelled from the decks and soldiers leapt overboard by the dozens. In a matter of minutes, the ship was torn in twain and the tentacles disappeared back into the water, leaving it to sink as the light continued on its journey towards the shore.

It stopped for nothing. The mercenary crew gasped when it rammed into the docks and reduced them down to splinters. A transparent, bioluminescent globe rose out of the water, so gargantuan that it could contain a small town.

But it only contained dorikori—hundreds of them, lined up in a tight spiral formation in pairs of two. They held steady as the twin tentacles returned, rising up and slapping down onto the rocky beach. They clung to the land and dragged the globe forth until it was beeched completely. The globe was resting on the back of some giant crab-like creature. When it opened its hideous jaws, the Alliance dorikori poured out like water.

Alaine let out a string of curses, helpless as she and her crew watched the enemy clash with their meager group of allies. Where was the Resistance? Had she been deceived?

Among the dorikori was a single undine. It was raised up in a fortified wooden gazebo carried by four oplopodi—walking cecaelian soldiers. The undine’s voice swelled up in the air, the melody to the rainfall’s percussion. It was low and haunting and ugly, hardly a “song” at all.

This ugly noise captured the hearts of the dorikori. The undine used it to bend their wills and make them its thralls, forcing them to fight with no regard to their own well-beings.

Alaine did not hear the sound so much as she _felt_ it. It was like a terrible itch in her brain that she couldn’t scratch. She pressed her palms against the sides of her helmet, closed her eyes and tried to resist its pull.

It was not like the operatic song-magic of the sirene echomaji, which enchanted only Terrian men. The undine’s howls pulled at the minds of young human girls—those most ripe for brainwashing. And once those girls were thralls of the undine, they were slaves to their songs for life.

Alaine didn’t know how, but she had somehow escaped the undine’s pull before and she believed she could do it again. She gnashed her teeth as she fought the sound within herself, pulling the long spear off her back.

The line of soldiers was breaking apart. There was no time to flee anymore. They were going to die, that much was obvious, but she refused to fall to the Alliance without the greatest fight of her life.

“Archers and spellcasters, find high ground,” she ordered. “Cavalry, intercept the enemy charge, and fighters, brace yourselves for stragglers!”

Lukas dismounted Evan’s horse and ran off into the shadows. Linde, Skel, and Jeimos took off as well to posts unseen while the centaurs readied their weapons. Alaine and the other two-legged fighters spaced themselves evenly apart in a semi-circle behind Elska and Javaan.

Ahead, the Alliance dorikori were making short work of their allies. They sped forth in pairs like a hurricane, each pair overwhelming the Folkvaran soldiers one by one.

Alaine cringed as she watched two dorikori run towards a young soldier with their long spears raised. They suddenly split in opposite directions, avoiding his sword and confusing the poor man for just a moment before skewering him from both sides. They were already running their spears through another soldier before his body hit the ground.

The dorikori’s brutality was calculated and efficient. Alaine knew no fiercer soldiers than they. They were snatched up by the Alliance before they even hit puberty and brainwashed by magical song, made into drones with no thoughts, no dreams, no ambitions beyond serving the Sovereign. Training and killing, killing and training—that was all they ever knew.

And for that reason, it pained Alaine to see them fall in battle, knowing they were only victims of a cruel master. Where was the Sovereign? Probably weeks away, lazing about on his throne while his thralls fought his battles. The thought twisted her stomach with disgust.

The dorikori breeched the wall of soldiers. They flooded through the streets like a wave of destruction, eerily silent unlike the screaming, shouting Folkvaran soldiers. They were not intimidated by the Folkvaran’s war cries. They heard only the terrible wailing of the undine. Its oplopodi attendants slowly carried its gazebo further down the main road, following the wave of dorikori.

Alaine planted her feet firmly on the ground. Cold flood water rushed passed her ankles and rain poured down her face. Her spear quivered in her white-knuckled grip as the dorikori approached. Her crew was there to intercept the charge, just as she commanded. Javaan and Elska bolted forth and broke the dorikori’s organized formation to pieces.

Javaan was a flurry of swinging machetes. Whatever his blades missed, Balthazaar caught with his spiked iron club. Elska’s long hammer crashed against a dorikori’s head with such force, it turned her skull to mist. Sheer momentum sent it through the heads of two others nearby.

There was no safe direction to attack the centaurs. To their fronts, their swinging weapons. To their rears, their kicking hooves. They reared up and trampled all in their path until the flood water stained Alaine’s ankles red.

But two centaurs and a jockey was not enough to stop the charge. Many bypassed them and were headed straight for the rest of the crew. Alaine, Evan, and Glenvar whirled around as they were closed in by enemies, seeing that none of their backs were exposed.

Evan raised his shield just as a dorikori rushed him. Her spear bounced off its iron surface, but her partner was quick to slide in from another direction. She leaped high into the air and attempted to spear Evan in the neck.

Alaine reacted quickly, thrusting her own spear upwards with a gruff shout. The dorikori impaled herself upon it and Alaine pushed her off the handle with her foot. Not a second later, she was turning around to block an attack from the left. Another opponent rushed her from the right, thwarted by Glenvar’s axe.

They fought with all their might, getting lost in the growing chaos. A dorikori leapt at Evan like a panther with a spear in place of claws. She did not expect his lycanthrope strength as he seized the end of the spear in his shield-arm and stopped her in mid-air. She clung to the handle, dangling for only a brief moment before he slammed her to the ground.

She splashed face-first into the flood water. A long crack opened in her helmet and water rushed in, soaking her hair and forcing her to transform into her aquatic form. Legless and disoriented, she writhed helplessly on the ground until Glenvar’s boot crashed against her face. She fell limp then, but she still had hundreds of sisters left to avenge her. Their chaos could be heard ringing out all through town.

The trio of fighters was quickly being overwhelmed. Then from the sky they heard a long, mighty screech like that of a monstrous crow, and down swooped Shadow and Isaac to their rescue.

The massive bird sped by with claws outstretched. She grabbed a half-dozen dorikori in her talons as she passed and carried them high. Some of them were ripped apart on impact, others squirming in her grip until Isaac gave the command, and then the roc released them. Their bodies rained down and fractured against streets and rooftops.

Alaine hated this. She hated every horrific, miserable second she was forced to harm these thralls. She swept her spear at the scaly legs of one, tripping her while she intercepted her partner charging in from the side.

She knew their tactics as well as they did, had spent a decade of her life doing nothing else but practicing those tactics just as they had.

The undine’s song continued to echo over the streets. Alaine tried to ignore it, tried to focus on the shouts and cries of her crew instead. It wasn’t enough. Her vision blurred just for a second, but she shook it off and speared another enemy.

Then her body jerked hard, as if someone had struck her in the spine. Her blue mermaid-eyes rounded, grip tightening on her spear. She gnashed her teeth. Her vision went black.

Somehow, a dorikori managed to jump on Glenvar’s back. She wielded a dagger, about to plunge it into his neck when Evan seized her by her own neck and squeezed. With just the strength in his fist, he crushed her windpipe and she fell bonelessly into the flood water.

“Damn it, Allie! Watch my six!” shouted Glenvar. But when he turned around, the eyes of his mermaid friend were not looking back. They were the eyes of a stranger, and he only met their gaze for a second before she drove her spear through his belly.

Evan’s mouth fell agape in horror and disbelief as he witnessed Alaine ram her spear through her own crewman, then carelessly kick his body off the end with her foot. Glenvar splashed down into the flooded street. The axe fell from his grip with a clatter. His eyes were blown wide with shock, not a word from his mouth as he stared up at the sky.

Whether he was alive or dead, Evan hadn’t a chance to find out, for Alaine had quickly turned her aggression on him. Evan raised his shield to block her spear, then cried out in pain as a dorikori’s sword slashed at his thigh.

He whirled around and bashed the dorikori with his shield. Her face deformed under the force, and then he was free to trap Alaine in a strong headlock. He seethed at her through his teeth, “What the fuck are you doing?”

Alaine’s voice croaked under the pressure of his arm against her throat. “For the Alliance!” she rasped. Evan’s face blanched. In that instant, the realization hit him.

With his sword arm occupied, he sliced another dorikori with the edge of his shield and shouted to any crewmen who may hear him, “Someone kill that blasted undine, _now_!”

Isaac must have seen the conflict from the skies, for Shadow made a fast, clumsy landing in front of Evan. Her wings shot out at full length and she let out a deafening screech at the surrounding dorikori. Her weight and her noise was enough to intimidate them into keeping their distance, if only long enough for Evan and Isaac to pull Glenvar into the saddle.

Alaine fought Evan’s grip all the while. Her cheeks turned red and then her face turned blue. She was going limp against him, so he eased his hold on her slightly as not to asphyxiate her. Perhaps a mistake, for she suddenly shot back to life and hooked her foot behind his false leg. With all her might she kicked forward and sent him toppling on his back.

“Alaine, don’t!” cried Isaac, watching helplessly from atop his roc as she grabbed her spear off the ground and raised it over Evan. “Shadow—” the boy began, but the roc was well ahead of his command.

She snatched Alaine’s spear away with her beak and tossed it aside. Just as quickly, she stepped on the mermaid, trapping her under her talon. A series of low, distressed crows rumbled from Shadow’s throat as she pinned Alaine there, defying her training to never hurt the crew. Her connection with Isaac, however, was stronger than any training.

Up in her saddle, Isaac held Glenvar tight. The portly man was slumped over his back, his long, lank hair fallen over his wet face. He was badly injured, but Isaac could tell he was alive by his harsh, ragged breaths. He fumbled with one of the many security straps and fastened it across Glenvar’s waist.

“Isaac,” called Evan, rising to his feet, “Alaine’s been enthralled! Don’t release her until that undine’s dead!”

Isaac shot him a solid nod. “You got it!” he said, and with a tug of the reigns, Shadow beat her wings and ascended. Alaine squirmed in the grip of her talons, unharmed but surely furious in her traitorous state.

From a nearby rooftop, Lukas had heard Evan’s plea. He hid in the shadow of a brick chimney, crouching low as he spied on the undine in her gazebo. It was carried along by four heavily-armored oplopodi and surrounded by a large troop of dorikori.

Lukas nocked an arrow in his bow. The undine’s gazebo was a cage of colorful painted wood and whale bone, with only a small window for its voice to escape.

It was a long and difficult shot, so he aimed his arrow with care. Just before he let it fly, the sirene’s melodic call poured over the wind from the sea once again. Lukas cried out in pain, the bow falling from his hands.

The arrow was let loose. It stuck into the side of the gazebo, and in that instant, the oplopodi lowered it to the ground. They shielded it with their bodies while the dorikori circled them in a defensive formation.

They examined the direction of the arrow, determining its trajectory. Then one of the oplopodi shouted something over the pouring rain, the sirene singing and the undine howling as he thrust a finger towards the rooftop. The darkness couldn’t hide Lukas from his Aquarian eyes. The dorikori spotted Lukas then, staggering around and screaming on the rooftop, and two of them bolted forth.

The pair scaled the side of the old building like treefrogs, acrobatically pulling and launching themselves upwards. They were on the roof in less than a minute, quickly advancing towards Lukas. They didn’t get far before a white bolt of light struck them.

The dorikori froze—quite literally—when they found their feet stuck to the wet shingles by clusters of ice. A light caught their attention, glowing on an adjacent rooftop.

There stood Linde, the crystal end of her wand glowing with a magical charge. The dorikori struggled in their icy binds, but they were stuck fast. One of them threw her spear at Linde with frightening precision. It would have pierced straight through the elfenne’s head, had she not raised a fat spike of ice to block it. The spear bounced away and rolled off the rooftop.

The sirene’s throats grew tired again by then, and Lukas made a quick and clumsy escape. He scrambled across the roof, but his boot slipped against the wet surface and he went tumbling down its slanted side. A stack of crates broke his fall below, toppling noisily.

Gathering his bow off the ground, he sprinted through alleyways towards the plaza where he knew Evan was probably being overwhelmed.

Linde too made her escape, disappearing down another maze of alleyways. She heard hooves galloping behind her, then quickly stepped aside as Balthazaar sped by on Javaan’s back. They charged straight down the main street and caught the gazebo guards unaware. Javaan plowed straight through the dorikori mob with his long machetes swinging, fountains of blood spraying up in his wake.

Balthazaar jumped off his back, and with his obscenely large steel gauntlet, he punched an oplopodi in the gut. The spikes on his knuckles pierced the scaly armor, the force knocking the oplopodi on his back.

The dorikori were quick to surround Balthazaar in a flurry of spears, but they hardly touched him before Javaan turned around and charged them again. They were knocked aside like ragdolls and trampled under his hooves.

It seemed everyone in the crew had heard Evan’s plea, for Skel and Jeimos had found the gazebo and were now making their way to the scene. The wretched creature continued to howl from inside. Each wail was a secret command that controlled the dorikori as one unit—an enthralled hivemind that fought efficiently as one.

Balthazaar and Javaan fought ferociously with the guards, but they were still outnumbered many times over. Javaan felt the sharp sting of spears piercing his equine hide. He bucked and madly kicked them away, swinging his blades in wild arcs.

Just beside him, Balthazaar tore through dorikori with furious punches. His heavy gauntlets made eggs of their skulls. At least until he felt an oplopodi’s tentacles wrap around his bicep, and then he was tossed to the ground. He saw the armored cecaelia raise a blade over him and braced for a gruesome death. Then everything flashed red.

Balthazaar thought his eyes had filled with blood. Then the flash faded and he realized the oplopodi was ablaze, as well as several of the dorikori around him. They screeched and flailed, collapsing into the floodwater to extinguish themselves. Water leaked under several of the dorikori’s helmets, transforming them into their aquatic forms.

Balthazaar scrambled back to his feet and began stomping their heads in one by one as they wriggled helplessly in the street.

He spotted Jeimos standing at the end of the street, their hands aglow with flame. Through the rainy mist, a shadow was creeping up behind them.

“Jay, look out!” screamed Javaan. Jeimos whirled around just in time to catch the dorikori sneaking up on them. Before her spear could touch them, the elf disappeared in a flash of light. The dorikori’s momentum sent her flying forward and she fell into the mud.

With a flash of light, Jeimos reappeared on a rooftop. They jumped with a fright, nearly slipping off when a loud crowing sound tore through the sky. Shadow circled above with Alaine fighting in her right talon. She swooped down to the main street, dorikori, oplopodi, and crewmen alike scattering as she approached. But the undine was trapped, helpless in its cage as Shadow seized its top in her left talon and carried it into the sky.

“Up! Up! Higher!” commanded Isaac. The roc beat her mighty wings and sped vertically into the clouds. Isaac had the conditioning to tolerate the ascent, and even special armor that restricted bloodflow to his legs.

Alaine and Glenvar lacked such luxury. They soon lost consciousness, Alaine falling limp in Shadow’s claws while Glenvar slumped over her back. Isaac had fortunately thrown a strap over Glenvar earlier, holding him in place against the saddle.

Once Woodborne was but a model city below, Isaac called, “Drop it!”

And Shadow, for all her years of training, was still just a dumb beast. She loosened her right talon, dropping Alaine rather than the gazebo. Isaac saw the mermaid’s body falling limply to the streets far below and he gasped in horror.

“Shadow! No, no, no!” he panicked. It was too late. Even at full speed, Shadow would never be able to catch her in time.

Balthazaar and Javaan were too occupied fighting dorikori to notice her. But from the rooftop, Jeimos witnessed the whole event and cried out hysterically, “Skel, Skel, catch her! Oh, my stars--!” They clenched their teeth, knees knocking as they hid their face in their long, wet sleeves.

They did not see Alaine crash against the street. Not only because they refused to, but because Skel bolted through a mob of dorikori, blasting them with a wave of telekinetic energy to part them. His heart hammered in his chest as he ran, watching Alaine speed towards her doom. Then he took a flying leap and dived into the mud, landing in the spot she crashed…

Or would have crashed, had he not enveloped her in his telekinesis. Alaine’s body slowed, slowed, slowed, until she hovered just inches above the goblin.

Skel’s arms quaked with psychic exertion. He could keep his hold no longer, so he dropped his arms and let Alaine fall on top of him. He grabbed her waist and struggled to pull her out harm’s way. The mob of dorikori he blasted earlier had just picked themselves up and were quickly advancing.

Alaine weighed more than him on her own on her own, and her waterlogged armor wasn’t helping matters. Skel was only a frail little goblin, and there was no way he could escape fast enough with her burden on his back. He had a quick decision to make: stay and attempt to fight off eight dorikori on his own, or drop Alaine to slow them down while he fled.

The choice was obvious to Skel. Alaine hit the street and Skel hit the road, sprinting away from the Aquarian horde. He didn’t get far before he heard a long, gruff war cry. He knew just who it was without turning his head, and behind him, Elska suddenly burst from an alley with her hammer raised high.

She plowed through the dorikori, trampling four under her hooves and smashing the other four to paste with her hammer like a tornado of death. She was stained with blood from head to hoof. Without missing a beat, she scooped up Alaine’s unconscious body and threw it over her shoulder, then took off down another alley.

Skel was left alone in the open, hostile soldiers prowling the mists around him. Any direction could be certain death. He swallowed the lump in his throat and skittered away into the shadows.

High above, Isaac looked back at Glenvar in the saddle. He was still strapped in, just beginning to regain consciousness. The _Maskamar_ groaned, gnashing his teeth and clutching his injured belly in agony.

“Hold on, Glen,” Isaac hissed, then he tugged the reigns and shouted, “Shadow, drop it!”

The roc obeyed, loosening her grip on the gazebo. Isaac yanked the right reign, directing her to follow the thing to the ground. It crashed down in the open plaza, bits of wood and fractured whale bone flying every which way.

The undine’s howling ceased. Shadow landed nearby just a moment later. Isaac guided her to carefully approach the pile of rubble lying before them. It began to twitch.

The undine’s heavy, clawed hands suddenly thrashed out of the rubble. It surfaced with a furious snarl. Isaac’s eyes rounded. He couldn’t believe it survived the fall! But with its big slug-like body, he supposed it had enough layers of blubber to absorb the impact.

It was not completely unscathed. Some planks of wood from its own gazebo had pierced through its scaly hide, blood dribbling from its many wounds, one of its arms clearly broken as its elbow jutted out grotesquely to the side.

“Shadow, attack!” commanded Isaac. The roc would make short work of the undine, he thought. But when Shadow charged forward, she soon staggered back again with a screech, beating her wings madly. A throaty, terrible wail erupted from the undine. It caused a rippling effect through the air before it struck Shadow and her passengers.

Isaac’s vision flashed white, then everything blurred behind the tears suddenly cascading from his eyes. He let out a yowl of pain, but his voice was quickly silenced by a gush of bloody vomit. Blood trickled from his nostrils, the front of his pants warm with urine, and even his ears leaked some kind of fluid that deafened him. Glenvar seemed to be experiencing the same, briefly writhing behind him before falling limp.

Isaac lost consciousness shortly after. He slumped forward against Shadow’s feathery neck. Whatever foul magic the undine had cast at them, it caused the bird great distress. She flapped her wings and screeched. Her eyes leaked tears. Saliva oozed from her beak.

She involuntarily defecated and then finally admitted defeat. Shadow turned tail and tried to fly, but her dizzy head wouldn’t allow it. She stumbled off aimlessly into the town.

The rest of the crew saw the undine, finally exposed and vulnerable. They rushed towards it with spells charged and weapons drawn. Javaan and Balthazaar were the first to act. Balthazaar swiftly jumped onto Javaan’s back and the two bolted towards the titan nymph, Javaan raising his machetes high.

As it turned out, the undine wasn’t as vulnerable as they thought. It barked another magical pulse at the two. The spell rippled through the air and struck Javaan first. He reared up on his hind legs with a yowl, throwing Balthazaar to the ground.

It was as if the pulse disturbed all the water in the centaur’s body, for tears spilled from his eyes, blood gushed from his nose and mouth, and it wasn’t long before he collapsed into a puddle of his own urine. Balthazaar hadn’t escaped the spell either, writhing on the street beside Javaan.

On his false leg and his injured thigh, Evan limped towards the undine with all the speed and might he could muster. He raised his iron shield when she barked her spell at him, blocking its power. It bought him a few extra steps towards the creature, then he lowered his shield and raised his sword to strike.

The undine was quicker. It swatted him away with its massive, clawed hand. Neither of his legs were fit enough to brace himself at that moment, so he was cast to the ground like a ragdoll before the undine finished him off with its horrid spell. Evan briefly cried out before his own vomit silenced him, blinded by his tears as he flailed in the mud.

The undine couldn’t control the dorikori if its throat was occupied by the water-pulsing spell, and so its drones began falling out of their organized formations, awaiting orders that Jeimos intended to intercept.

The elf bolted across the plaza and lobbed fireball after fireball at the undine. Each one missed by inches. The undine barked her spell, but Jeimos teleported themselves out of harm’s way. The pulse rippled by and dissipated.

Jeimos reappeared with a burst of light just behind the undine. They planted their booted feet firmly in place and their magical hands shot out before them. From their fingers blasted a relentless volley of flame, and the undine screeched in agony.

It also wriggled in agony, throwing itself into the flood waters and slapping Jeimos with its fat tail. The elf spun through the air and hit the ground. The impact left them too disoriented to right themselves.

Skel stood on a rooftop, using his telekinesis to pick up stones and bits of rubble. He hurled them at the undine, but the creature simply batted his projectiles away like toys.

“Linde! Linde, help!” the goblin called, but the elfenne was nowhere to be found. A terrible shame, he thought, for her powers would be most useful at a time like this. Then he thought nothing at all as the undine’s pulse rippled towards him. He collapsed to his knees and rolled off the rooftop, crashing into a pile of trash below.

Elska had been trying to get Alaine to safety. But she had seen her crew fall before her, and now she had no choice but to toss Alaine’s body aside and charge at the wretched nymph herself. She announced herself with a booming war cry, meant to strike fear in the hearts of her enemies. The undine was not so intimidated. It sucked in a breath to meet her with its spell.

That was the last breath of the undine’s life.

Elska came to a slippery stop, staring wide-eyed in confusion. An arrow had shot out of nowhere and pierced right through the undine’s skull. The undine’s body froze with a sudden jerk. Its glowing yellow eyes rolled up in its head. Slowly its elbows gave way and it slid onto its belly, lying motionless in the flood water. It was dead.

The arrow’s tip was pointed east. Elska looked to the west and saw none other than Lukas, stepping out of a narrow alley. He wiped the rain off his brow and panted, “Got you, you noisy bitch!”

The threat was far from over, however. Elska and Lukas looked all around at the Alliance dorikori, running amok with no master to guide them. They were beginning to behave strangely, their silence broken as they cried out with rage and attacked the town itself.

They picked up barrels and trash cans and used them to smash windows. They ripped gutter pipes off the eaves, kicked doors down, and tipped lampposts. Public mailboxes were kicked in like tin cans in their aimless rage.

“The dorikori have lost their direction,” remarked Elska. “They are going berserk!”

Lukas swept his gaze over the plaza. Linde, Isaac, and Glenvar were missing, Alaine was knocked out, Jeimos was too injured to move, and everyone else was lying half-conscious in their own bodily fluids. He turned back to Elska and extended his right hand.

“See you guys on the other side, I guess,” he told the centaur. Elska nearly shook his hand, then paused.

“No! We mustn’t give up!” She tightened her grip on her hammer. “So long as there is fight left in us, the battle is not over!”

“Elska, it’s beyond over!” argued Lukas, seizing the handle of her hammer. “Make peace with your gods because there’s no way we’re getting out of this alive! We’re dust!”

Elska jerked her weapon from his hands and hissed, “Fine, die a coward! I will meet the gods with glory!” With that, she sprinted towards the mob of dorikori wreaking havoc on Woodborne’s main street.

Lukas let out a growl of frustration and rushed towards Evan, still lying in the mud as he slowly regained his senses. The archer dropped to his knees before him, cupping his wet face in his equally wet hands.

“Wha…? Lu?” Evan groaned, blinking the blur from his eyes.

“Shhh,” Lukas quickly hushed him. He hunched over and pressed their foreheads together. “We lost, Ev. It’s over.”

“We lost…?”

“But we won’t die alone. It’s okay,” Lukas told him softly. His best friend’s mouth and chin were stained with blood. He wiped it away with his wet glove and locked him in a kiss.

Evan lie weak and disoriented, his heart sinking with anguish and swelling with love all at once. He closed his eyes and let his head sink back into the cold mud, accepting both the kiss and his supposed death.

Suddenly his eyes snapped open again, startled by a sudden flash of lightning and the deafening clap of thunder from above. Lukas pulled away from him and looked towards the sky, shielding his squinting eyes from the rain.

The black storm clouds were swirling violently towards the steeple of Woodborne’s largest church, which also happened to be the tallest building in the city. The steeple could be seen from any street, and clinging to it with all six of his tentacles was Mr. Ocean, leader of the Oceanic Resistance.

His tentacles clutching the steeple, his hands were free to raise his long, bone staff above his head. He waved it in a rhythmic, circular motion towards the swirling clouds above, drawing a wide circle of light in the air. From the circle rose a massive projection of his own face, glowing as bright as the sun. Clouds in its proximity burned away like paper to a flame.

Like the sirenes and the undine, Mr. Ocean began singing a musical incantation of his own. His voice was amplified like thunder through the projection of his face:

“ _Quietly, you set your worries free,_

_Silently, you give your souls to the sea,_

_Willingly, you pledge your allegiance to me,_

_Finally, it’s wonderful! It’s wonderful! It’s wonderful to be free!”_

As if on queue, the colossal doors of the church swung open and hundreds of Resistance dorikori flooded out. They poured down the steps and through the streets like water. They were not armed with weapons. Rather, they clutched little green orbs in their palms. Their eyes were green as well, glowing sharply in the darkness.

Evan blinked his bleary eyes again. Woodborne’s main street came into focus, and he saw hundreds of green lights bobbing closer from the church. He realized they were the eyes of the Resistance soldiers. He watched as they pitched their strange orbs at their Alliance sisters and the orbs exploded into sticky green goo. The goo was like a living creature, sprouting long tendrils that wrapped each soldier in a tight embrace they couldn’t escape.

Alliance dorikori were trapped in the ooze before they even knew what hit them. They lost their balance and hit the ground, trapped in their cocoons like flies in a spider’s web. Lukas’ jaw dropped in disbelief. In a matter of minutes, the tides of battle were turning.

Mr. Ocean’s projection let out a thunderous scream, and from his false eyes burst flashes of light that consumed the town. It cut through the black clouds, dissipating their mass and their rain. The sky quickly cleared, lit up bright and blue exclusively around Woodborne.

The Alliance dorikori’s Aquarian eyes could not tolerate such brightness, nor could the remaining Alliance forces fighting the warships in the sea.

The enemy was subdued by blindness, and then Woodborne’s defenders truly held the battle in their hands. The dorikori which escaped capture fled back into the sea. The chaos was dying to a murmur.

Alaine awoke some time ago, still struggling to stay on her feet. Her knees knocked and her thighs wobbled, as if all the blood in her body had been sloshed around like ocean waves. Her head was pounding. She pulled off her helmet and threw it to the ground, rubbing at her aching temples.

She could see the battle was ending in their favor, but she did not quite remember how it happened. The fight was a blur. Her whole body ached so badly, she wanted nothing more than to crawl back in her tent and sleep for days.

Someone approached her. She jumped as Evan pulled her into a tight embrace. “Alaine,” he sighed, “thank the gods you’re alright! I mean, er…” He pulled away, shooting her a strange look. “You are, aren’t you?”

His body language was defensive. He was tense as if he half-expected her to strike him. Alaine nodded, voice weary when she replied, “Yeah. I-I think so. I…”

She suddenly froze. The memory was breaking through the haze now, flashes of her actions under the undine’s wicked spell. She saw a vision of betrayal, of driving her weapon through the belly of her very own crewman. She saw herself attack her captain shortly after, and the shame turned her face lobster-red.

“Oh! Oh, no! No, no, no, Evan…!” she gasped and broke down into tears. Finally her wobbling legs gave way and she collapsed in the street. “Evan, what have I done?” she sobbed. Lukas kept his distance with the rest of the crew, looking upon their traitorous mermaid friend as Evan kneeled by her side.

Evan squeezed her shoulder and said, “It’s alright, Alaine. It wasn’t you, it—”

“Where’s Glen?” she blurted, meeting his gaze with dread in her wide, glistening eyes. “God, oh god, where is he?”

Evan assured her, “It’s okay, he’s with Isaac. Who is, uh…er…” He looked this way and that, seeing no sign of the roc. He shook his head and pulled Alaine back to her feet. “They’ll turn up. Come on, let’s get indoors.”

The crew limped and stumbled their way down the main street, following the Resistance dorikori as they dragged the bound Alliance soldiers into the church in droves. As the mercenaries made the journey there, they watched Mr. Ocean wave his staff, dispelling the projection of his face. The bright light faded away with it. Woodborne was enveloped in the darkness of night once again.

With the clouds burned away, the stars twinkled in the black sky while the eyes of Mr. Ocean’s soldiers twinkled in the black streets. The Freelance Good Guys made their way into the church, relieved at the warm air on their skin and the dry floor beneath their feet. The interior was massive, its ceilings stretching high above as to make those inside feel small.

Also tall were the windows, their stained glass depicting imagery of ships and krakens—leviathan sea monsters that haunted local waters. No one in the crew could say what religion this church was built to honor, for faiths were countless in this region. Obviously it was a faith popular with Aquarians, for in the middle of the main hall was a spacious, rectangular pool. The water inside was as deep as a human man was tall. More curiously, it seemed to be infected with greenlite.

Along the walls, bone sconces were lit with magical orbs of light, casting every face in an aqua-colored glow. Alaine and the rest of the mercenaries collapsed on the floor in some quiet corner. They watched as Resistance forces continued dragging their Alliance foes into the church, lining them up along the walls. The Alliance dorikori shouted in protest and jerked helplessly in their sticky binds.

“They’re taking an awful lot of captives,” observed Evan.

“What do you think they’ll do with them? Mass execution?” asked Balthazaar.

“Maybe they’ll ransom them back to the Alliance,” suggested Lukas.

Alaine’s brows shot up at the thought. “They better not do any of that!” she growled. “Where’s Ocean?”

“I’m sure he’ll arrive soon. Everyone just stay here,” Evan told her, rising to his aching feet. “I’ll see if I can find Isaac and the others.”

Evan took only a few steps towards the doors before a large, black shadow passed through them. A shadow indeed, for when it stepped into the glow of the sconces, their light revealed Shadow the roc.

She trudged unsteadily into the church, head turning this way and that as if searching for something. The passing dorikori gave her a wide berth. She turned towards the crew sitting in the corner and it seemed she found just what she was looking for.

She let out a monstrous crow that vibrated the windows, then charged straight for Evan. She knocked him onto his back and pressed him into the floor with her head, nuzzling him madly with her beak. Evan couldn’t help but laugh. He patted the beast’s beak and said, “Okay, girl, that’s enough! I’m happy to see you too!”

Upon her saddle sat Isaac, hunched over and haggard. His face was blanched, his eyes glazed over, blood smeared across his nose and chapped lips. He unstrapped Glenvar and they both slid off Shadow’s back, hitting the floor in a heap.

The crew rushed to their aid. Isaac picked himself up and waved them away. “I’m okay,” he croaked. “Glen’s hurt bad. Please, just…just help him…” He tried to stand and immediately collapsed again. Evan caught him before he hit the floor, lying him gently against the wall.

“We all lost a lot of water,” he said, uncorking the canteen on his belt and handing it to Isaac. “Here. Drink.”

The young man did so without question. He gulped down half of the water inside before passing it back. Evan finished off the other half, the cool water soothing his dry, burning throat.

Their clothes were soaked through to the skin with rainwater, but for that the mercenaries were grateful, for it concealed the fact that they were also wet with sweat, urine, vomit, blood, and other bodily fluids they weren’t even aware they had until the undine purged it out of them.

The others crowded around Glenvar. He was lying flat on his back, slipping in and out of consciousness. Each breath was labored and ragged. His chest was protected by an iron plate, but a section of his belly was exposed, protected only by a tartan tunic and a heavy belt. Alaine had deliberately driven her spear through the small gap between his armor and his belt.

She fell to her knees and grasped his bloody hands in her own. “Glen,” she croaked through her tears, “Glen, I’m so sorry! I’m so, so sorry!” Her voice trailed off into a squeak and she could hold her sobs back no longer, dropping her head against his armored chest.

Glenvar weakly squeezed her hand back. “Weren’t yer fault,” he grunted. “S’okay, _stira_.”

“Everyone stand aside, please,” said Jeimos. Their hands lit up like firewood as they approached Glenvar. The other crewmen stepped back, watching anxiously as Jeimos pressed their burning hands against the wound in Glenvar’s belly.

Glenvar’s scream echoed off the walls. Balthazaar and Lukas held his arms down as he squirmed. In seconds the wound was cauterized, the tartan fabric around it blackened. His tunic was much too wet to go up in flames.

“Ah, _shite_ , Jay! That hurt worse than the damn spear!” Glenvar wheezed, clutching the wound tightly.

The elf brushed his long, wet hair out of his face and told him softly, “I’m so sorry, chap. That should keep you from bleeding out until the medics sweep through.”

“Did she hit any organs, Glen?” asked Balthazaar.

Glenvar spat back, “What? How the feck should I know?” He struggled his way into a sitting position, patting his many pockets. “Where’s my flask?”

His eyes rounded when Alaine threw her arms around his neck, squeezing him in a tight, swaying embrace. She planted a solid kiss on his lips. In an instant, his face flushed from white to bright pink.

“Please be okay,” she begged through her tears. “Don’t die on me, you idiot! You’re not allowed!”

Glenvar hugged her back. His voice creaked with pain, smile strained when he replied, “Hmm. Lay yer lips on mine again ‘n I’ll think about it.”

Alaine sighed and pecked him on the mouth. Glenvar smirked and said, “I’m not talkin’ about _those_ lips. C’mon, don’t get cheap on a dyin’ man!”

Alaine delivered a good-natured slap to the back of his head. “Ugh, I’m _this_ close to putting you out of your misery,” she snapped, pinching her fingers together as Glenvar wheezed with sickly laughter.

The whole crew was now accounted for, all except for Linde. Evan was just about to ask the others if they’d seen her when he saw her pass through the doorway. But she did not walk in one her own two feet—rather, she was carried in by Mr. Ocean himself.

The cecaelia was clad in an armored sash and a black sharkskin bandana. Leather strips were wrapped haphazardly around his wrists and ankles, a worn belt at his waist holding an arsenal of wands and daggers. He scanned the room for a moment, then spotted the crew and approached them.

“Linde! What’s wrong? Is she okay?” stammered Alaine. Mr. Ocean kneeled, laying the elfenne on the floor. For the first time since arriving in Woodborne, Alaine finally saw the true yellow color of his eyes.

Linde’s bone-white face was contorted in agony. All she could do was groan. They could see now, the unnatural way her leg was twisted, and the many cuts and bruises on her person. Her armored blue robes were marred by the clean slashes of blades.

Most troubling was her injured leg, for her calf was nearly separated from her knee. The great wound was quickly spilling blood, pooling beneath her on the stone floor.

“This woman says she’s one of yours. She will die soon—” began Mr. Ocean.

The words barely left his mouth before Alaine shouted, “No! No, she can’t! Get a medic in here, now!”

Mr. Ocean calmly raised a palm to silence her. “They are all tending to the Folkvarans. So I will do my best. Please, give me silence.”

Questions danced on Alaine’s tongue, but she bit them back and fell quiet with the others. They watched as Mr. Ocean sat cross-legged beside Linde. He took in a deep breath, bending his elbows with his hands outstretched to his sides. They began to glow with a glossy light, like the waving, delicate fins of a fish.

He brought his hands to Linde’s twisted leg, shredded flesh exposed by her equally shredded robe. The cecaelia pressed his palms against her thigh and slowly exhaled through his nose. As he did, one of his hands slid down the length of her leg.

The crew watched in equal parts horror and awe. Linde’s bones popped and crackled like flame, jerking rapidly as they magically mended themselves. She groaned and writhed through the process, so much that the crew had to hold her in place as they’d done with Glenvar.

Her leg gradually straightened in the wake of his sliding hand, her wounds mending themselves when it passed. By the time he reached her booted toe, her leg was still smeared with dirt and blood, but no longer was it twisted or wounded. Her blood loss had been halted completely.

Mr. Ocean slipped a hand under Linde’s back and carefully guided her to her feet. “Can you stand now?” he asked. Breathless and clearly exhausted, Linde cautiously put her weight onto the leg. It held steady, so she took five paces forward and another five back.

She covered her mouth in shock, pink eyes staring wide at the cecaelia. “It’s good as new! It’s—it’s not even bleeding!” she gasped. “Y-you saved my life, sir! Thank you, thank you so much!”

Mr. Ocean smiled back so naturally, though it was an expression his kind were not supposed to know. He turned to Alaine and said, “It’s very the least I could do. I watched the battle from beginning to end,” he gestured vaguely towards the ceiling, “and once again, I saw your meager crew hold its own against impossible odds. It’s as if the gods themselves watch over you!”

Alaine’s eyes rounded. “Wait. You were here the whole time?” She shot to her feet and poked him hard in the chest. “So why did you wait so long to step in? Didn’t you see the Folkvarans getting slaughtered?”

Her voice escalated in volume. She shoved the cecaelia and went on through clenched teeth, “Didn’t you see _my_ _crew_ getting overwhelmed? Mr. Ocean, where were you when we needed you?”

The cecaelia took a step back, raising his palms. He replied to her, tone calm as ever, “You all did excellent work—I’m not trying to say you didn’t—but, well, I thought that undine would be neutralized much sooner…”

“You were waiting for _us_ to kill the undine?” Alaine blurted. Her fists quaked at her sides. Evan foresaw her knuckles driving into the Resistance leader’s face, so he gently took her by the arms and pulled her back.

Still she fought against his grip and shouted, “You expected us to do _your_ dirty work? To fight _your_ battle? _That_ was your plan?”

“Alaine, please don’t—” Evan pleaded.

Mr. Ocean replied quickly, “Please understand, Resistance forces have been dwindling lately. I needed to spare all I could, and maximize the number of Alliance dorikori I could save. It was all for the greater good of Terria, my friend.”

Alaine wasn’t convinced. “No, it was for your personal gain! You know who else does bullshit like this, Ocean?” She stamped her foot and barked, “Your greedy warlord brother! You’re no different than him!”

Her words cut like a blade, for Mr. Ocean stepped back and clutched his chest as if he’d been stabbed.

His expression hardened with pain. “Is…is that truly what you think of me?” he queried weakly.

“Alaine!” Evan hissed, giving her arms a hard squeeze. He leaned in close to her ear and rumbled, “Do _not_ burn bridges. We still need his help.” He nodded towards Glenvar, still lying on the floor with a cauterized wound on his belly.

Glenvar sipped from his flask. Just as soon, he sputtered up the alcohol and groaned in pain. Alaine’s brow sagged along with her heart. The rage was still burning, but she knew Evan was right.

So she took a deep breath and contained the fire, calming her voice when she spoke to the Resistance leader again, “No. No, I’m sorry, Mr. Ocean. I just…” She sighed, averting her gaze in the shame of her lies. “That undine really messed with my head earlier. I guess I’m still a little on edge.”

The pain in the cecaelia’s face softened. He dared to step towards her then, planting his webbed fingers on the pauldrons of her armor. “It sickens me, what they do to you,” he told her. “To rob someone of their will is the most heinous thing one can do to another! But for all my faults, I still am a powerful sorcerer. I can help you, little mermaid. I can promise you freedom from the Alliance, and you will never fear the undine’s song again.”

Alaine glared up at him, brushing his hands off her shoulders. “Let me guess: you’re going to peer-pressure me into that greenbrite stuff?”

The cecaelia smiled again. “A ritual is taking place soon. When it is time, you will see what you’ll see, and then you’re free to be what you’ll be. The choice is yours, not mine.”

The mermaid glanced at her crew. They looked back at her with pleading eyes, silently begging her not to lose her temper. She took in a deep breath and let it out through her nostrils.

Then she swept her hand towards Glenvar and asked, “If you’re so great and powerful, can you take a minute to help my friend here? He’s injured pretty bad.”

Cocking his head, Mr. Ocean approached Glenvar. He looked the man up and down. “Ah,” he said, “this is the one you attacked in your thralldom.”

Alaine’s face blanched. Reluctantly she admitted, “You don’t have to rub it in! Can magic do anything for him, or should I be hunting for a surgeon right now?”

Mr. Ocean willed his power to his fingertips and replied, “Magic can do anything. The question is: does it respect me enough to obey my command?”

*


	3. Grave on the Mountaintop

**[CHAPTER 3: GRAVE ON THE MOUNTAINTOP]**

The last Alliance captive was finally dragged into the church. She was lined up with her sisters, all bound in their sticky binds.

The injured were tended to, including Glenvar. Mr. Ocean’s curative magic closed his wounds inside and out, but he knew no spell that could prevent infection. The _Maskamar_ was stripped of his armor, left in his cotton undershirt and pants as he rested on the floor. Mr. Ocean told him to rest as much as possible, so that his body could fight off any bacteria that may have invaded with the end of Alaine’s spear.

Alaine knew a thing or two about infections and how serious they could get. She sat by Glenvar’s side, stroking his hair as she watched the Resistance operate. They were closing the towering doors of the church, preparing for the mysterious ritual.

Mr. Ocean stepped up to one end of the long pool. His voice boomed through the church, “The ritual begins now, my friends! Bring your wayward sisters to me and I will cleanse their souls in my blessed waters! No longer are they slaves to the Sovereign. Today, they are reborn into a life of freedom!”

His soldiers erupted into a swell of cheers. Alaine watched curiously, nervously, as they formed a line and began dragging the Alliance drones into the greenlite bath. Mr. Ocean stepped into the pool and met them its center. Each Alliance soldier’s helmet had been removed.

Mr. Ocean seized the first drone’s head in his hand and dunked it below the surface. A light flashed beneath as she morphed into her aquatic form. She flailed underwater for a moment, held in place by Mr. Ocean and one of his soldiers.

Then they allowed her to surface, and she did so with a gasp and a scaly, green face. Her black eyes darted all around. They were wide and fearful, full of confusion as if she was lost in the universe.

Her sticky binds dissolved in the water like sugar. The soldier dragged her out of the pool and sat with her along the wall. She spoke to the drone, but Alaine couldn’t hear their words from across the large room. The next Resistance soldier in line stepped up with another drone, and Mr. Ocean plunged her into the water too. He repeated this for each drone, cleansing them of undine influence one by one.

Alaine remembered so long ago, when he had cleansed Deanne too. He didn’t use greenlite then; he used only his own magic to remove the undine’s hold. Alaine recalled what he told her: that with his magic, he could return Deanne’s will, but not her memories.

Her life as a Terrian was forever lost to the sea. He frightened her into serving his cause, telling her she was still vulnerable to the undine’s song, and the Alliance could snatch her right back without the protection of the Resistance.

His words did not scare Alaine. So she and Deanne parted ways then, and they remained apart for a very long time.

It was like being born again, Alaine supposed, to a whole new life as a whole new person. She had personally sought the Divines of the Sea, received their blessing and her past. But what of these sisters, being bathed in intoxicating water and preached to in their vulnerable state? Alaine didn’t like this. Everything about the ritual made her uneasy.

As the ritual went on, someone approached her. It was Deanne, and unlike the last time Alaine saw her, her eyes were not glowing with greenlite. She kneeled before her friend and said, “Alaine, I’ve been looking for you! Come on, I’ll accompany you for your cleansing.”

She reached for Alaine’s hand, but Alaine jerked it away and replied, “Me? Who says I want it?”

Deanne frowned. “Why _wouldn’t_ you want it?” She tipped her head at Glenvar, asleep beside her friend. “I heard what happened. You almost killed him, Alaine. This will happen again, and the next time it does, your friends might not be so lucky.”

Alaine opened her mouth to protest. She soon closed it, for she realized Deanne wasn’t wrong. Like Mr. Ocean told her long ago, she was still prey to the undine. She paused for a moment.

Finally she sighed, “What does the greenlite do, exactly?”

“Okay, I know you saw some weird stuff the other day,” began Deanne, “but it’s a good medicine, I promise you. Yes, you can get silly on it if you overdo it, as you saw. But that’s a small price to pay for freedom, don’t you think?”

Alaine raised an eyebrow. “No one’s ever died from it?”

“Never,” Deanne assured her. “It’s impossible. Your body can only soak up so much, and that amount isn’t enough to cause harm. Once you’ve been cleansed in greenlite, it’ll always be part of you. Just one bath is enough to protect you from undine for the rest of your life.”

A silence passed between them. Alaine’s gaze drifted towards the pool, where Mr. Ocean was cleansing another drone. Then it drifted to Glenvar, looking pale and haggard even in sleep.

“When the Resistance finally showed up,” began Alaine, “Ocean was singing some kind of incantation. That’s song magic, right? What’s it called—echomancy? I know he had a grip on you guys. Your eyes were glowing like thralls.” She gestured to her own eyes.

Deanne hesitated. She considered her reply carefully before she said, “Well, yes, we’re enthralled to him _temporarily_ when he wills it. But it isn’t like you think! It’s only to help us fight as one, so we’ll be just as efficient as our Alliance sisters. He’s just trying to protect us, that’s all.”

Alaine’s brow hardened. “So that’s the real cost,” she said. “He protects you from undine, and in return, you’re forced into thralldom whenever he calls for it. Deanne, doesn’t this sound just a little familiar to you?”

“It’s not the same at all!” Deanne exclaimed, balling her fists at her knees. “Mr. Ocean is not wicked like the Sovereign. I’ve known him for all my life—at least the life that I can remember—and he’s been nothing but a friend to me. I’ve told you a thousand times and I’ll tell you again: we fight because we choose to!”

Another silence passed, heavy as a whale. Alaine’s stubborn gaze met Deanne’s, both staring holes through eachothers’ resolves.

Deanne was the first to break. Visibly frustrated, she threw a hand towards Glenvar and hissed, “Mr. Ocean saved your crew’s life! He didn’t have to do that, you know! Do you think the Sovereign would spend even one second of energy to help a Terrian?”

Alaine suddenly straightened her spine. “We didn’t _have_ to be meat-shields for the Resistance either! We extended a hand out of the goodness of our hearts and then he sent us to die! Yeah, he saved us, but only _after_ he let us get torn apart! He said it himself: it was the very least he could fucking do!”

Shooting to her feet, Alaine took a few angry paces this way and that. She clutched her disheveled blue hair as she growled, “I can’t—I just—I need to get out of here! I can’t watch what you’re doing to them!” She began storming towards the door.

Deanne stood up and chased her, calling, “Come on, let’s just—”

Whirling around, Alaine pointed a finger in her face and seethed, “No! I’m done, Deanne! You’ll never understand the way we used to be! We caught frogs together, we had mud fights and picked bluebells in the forest! When my dad got sick, you were there for me more than my own mother was! I loved you so much, you were my best friend in the world! But…”

Her voice creaked, tears welling in her eyes. “…you’re not Deanne. She died a long time ago, and you’re using her corpse to serve a tyrant. I don’t even know who you are. The girl you used to be would _hate_ you!”

Deanne’s jaw fell slack. Words stuck in her throat, frozen in place by the intensity of Alaine’s wet eyes. “I know it’s not your fault,” Alaine croaked, “and I can’t really hold your actions against you. But you are not my friend, and I hope I never see you again.”

With that, Alaine stormed off towards the doors, where two Resistance dorikori stood guard. She pulled one of the heavy doors open just enough to slip through and the guards quickly pushed it closed behind her.

Deanne stood frozen, silent in the dark corner of the church. She looked down at Glenvar, who had just awoken from a deep sleep. He sucked in a deep breath as he looked to his left, then his right.

Then he spotted Deanne and asked, “Hey, ya seen where Allie went?”

*

The ritual concluded as the first rays of daylight rose over the horizon. The church doors opened, Woodborne’s state of emergency was lifted, and the townsfolk returned to clean up the carnage.

The Freelance Good Guys trudged back to their little camp on the outskirts of town. Just as they arrived, everyone else in the refugee camp was packing up to go home. The mercenaries decided they would stay and lick their wounds for a day or two before making the arduous journey to Drifter’s Hollow.

Glenvar was in no condition to cook. The others foraged through their bags for a quick, dry meal, and then they crawled straight into their bedrolls for some much needed rest.

Jeimos lied in their shared tent for hours, though they had no one to share it with. They couldn’t sleep, for their worrying forbid their eyes to close. No one had seen Alaine since she walked out of the church last night.

Now it was hours later and she still hadn’t come back. She was probably just getting drunk at the tavern, said Jeimos’ brain. But their gut said otherwise, and it protested and protested until they crawled out of their tent and into Evan’s.

“Mr. Atlas,” they whispered, “it’s nearly noon and I’m afraid Ms. Fontaine still hasn’t returned!”

Evan rolled onto his back with a yawn. “Huh?” he groaned, rubbing at his weary eyes. Glenvar was still fast asleep beside him.

Jeimos told him with urgency, “I haven’t seen Alaine since last night! I’m getting quite worried. It isn’t like her to just disappear like this.”

Evan blinked a few times, staring hard at oblivion. “Hm,” he rumbled, tossing his fur blanket aside. “Yes, that is strange. I’ll go look for her. Keep an eye on Glenvar for me, will you?”

“Yes, of course,” Jeimos replied quietly. They watched Evan put on his prosthetic leg, then don a thick, blue sweater over his cotton shirt. He snagged his toque off the floor as he exited the tent.

Though the air outside was nearly freezing, Glenvar did not quiver, even as he lie uncovered in nothing but a pair of cotton pants. Jeimos examined the faded scar of his belly wound for swelling. They noticed a warm light pulsing beneath his flesh, right where his heart was located.

It was his _flamcor_ , glowing with magic to keep him warm in the cold. It must have been working hard to glow so brightly, thought Jeimos. They dragged a heavy fur blanket over him, but just moments later, Glenvar stirred and tossed it away.

“Too hot,” he said blearily. Jeimos quirked a crimson eyebrow.

“Too hot? You must be kidding. I’m shaking like a leaf!” The elf pulled their black robe tighter. “Can I make you some tea? Or I could read to you?”

“Ugh, Jay, I feel like total shite,” Glenvar mumbled. “Just leave me alone…”

“Oh, stars! I hope you don’t have an infection!” gasped Jeimos. They pulled off their pyriad leather glove and touched their palm to his forehead. It was indeed hot to the touch, but whether from fever or his _flamcor_ was hard to say.

Glenvar said, “Hey, I know what ya can do fer me. Evan’s got good bourbon stashed in the cart. Bring it here and we’ll share it, eh?”

“I don’t believe that’s helpful to the situation, Glenvar.”

“It’s alcohol! Alcohol kills germs! Ah, I told ya college was a scam! They didn’t teach ya nothin’!”

“That’s just foolish. That’s not how it works at all.”

Glenvar rolled his eyes. “Just get me the damn booze, Red.”

Jeimos let out a loud sigh as they pulled their glove back on. “Why have I, of all people, been tasked as your nursemaid?” they lamented. “I do hope Alaine returns soon. She wouldn’t tolerate anyone’s nonsense. Especially not yours!”

With that, they left the tent and began searching the cart for alcohol.

*

After a few hours of rest, Evan was already feeling better. His lycanthropy healed his wounds with haste, and even the deep gash on his thigh had shrunk down to a shallow scratch.

He was fairing better than the rest of his crew, so he alone made his way through Woodborne in search of Alaine. He checked the most obvious places first: meaning the cheapest taverns.

Alaine loved nothing more than music, drink, and dance. But the town was still reeling after the battle and hardly any business were running just yet. Townsfolk were still struggling to sweep all the wet, reeking garbage out of the streets.

The Alliance was infamous for weaponizing trash. They hauled it up from the sea and launched it at their coastal enemies by the tons. The garbage was primarily plastic, a material that was outlawed throughout most of Noalen. Evan was sure it had come from Zareen Empire, and it would surely be put on a barge and sent back there eventually.

He stopped on the main road, spotting a commotion near the bathhouse. Hundreds of resistance dorikori were crowded around the entrance, chattering and rushing about in a panic. One cecaelia stood among them, towering two heads above theirs.

He was not Mr. Ocean, but the Resistance commander, Roach. Though they hadn’t spoken in many years, Evan recognized the black mask-like stripe across his eyes and the fish hook glinting in his nostril.

He and Evan suddenly locked eyes. Roach pointed a clawed finger at the lycanthrope and shouted something, then shoved his way through the mob of soldiers. He and one dorikori rushed up to Evan.

If he recalled correctly, the dorikori was Alaine’s old friend, Deanne. He found it hard to tell Resistance soldiers apart at times, for every one of them had identical shaven heads and scales obscuring half of their faces.

“You!” barked Roach. “You’re with Alaine Fontaine’s crew, correct?”

Evan hesitated. “Er, yes. Why? Is something wrong?”

“Mr. Ocean was found decapitated behind the bathhouse early this morning,” explained Deanne. Her voice was trembling slightly. “The body is present, but we can’t find his head. We also can’t find Ms. Fontaine. Please, do you know her whereabouts?”

Evan furrowed his brow. “No, I don’t. I was just out looking for her, in fact. What does Alaine have to do with this?”

Roach told him flatly, “We believe she’s responsible for this, and if so, she may have Mr. Ocean’s head in her possession. We need to locate her with utmost urgency!”

Evan’s tone carried a hint of offense as he asked, “You really think so? Why on Gaia do you think she would do something like that?” He gestured towards the bathhouse. “You just recruited a few hundred enemy soldiers yesterday. I’d suspect one of them before I ever suspected Alaine!”

Roach said, “All of our troops are accounted for. I know the locations of every last one of them. Can you say the same, sellsword?”

Evan opened his mouth for a retort. He had nothing, so he simply sighed, “Well, obviously not…”

“Alaine made some…” Deanne paused, choosing her words carefully. “… _concerning_ remarks during the ritual last night. She expressed violent disapproval of Mr. Ocean and the Resistance just before she disappeared. That alone makes her our biggest suspect.”

Evan let out a deep sigh, massaging the bridge of his nose. “Alright,” he mumbled. “I suppose you want us to go track her down then.”

Roach shook his head. “No. You and the rest of your crew aren’t leaving Woodborne—or my sight—until both Alaine and Mr. Ocean are found.”

“You’re holding us hostage? Are you serious?” Evan’s brows jumped, gaze flicking between the two.

“Alaine is likely holding our leader hostage. It’s only fair,” Deanne told him bluntly. “The Commander will accompany you at your camp until this is resolved. If you try to sneak out of his sights, the Resistance will use any means necessary to subdue you. This includes injury or death. Are we clear?”

Evan stared her down for a long moment. His jaw was set tight behind his lips, fist clenching and unclenching at his side. Then he shifted his eyes towards Roach, meeting green to yellow.

“Fine,” he said. “But you folks don’t know Alaine like we do. If she doesn’t want to be found, you’ll be searching for her until the Serkel Desert freezes over.”

*

Night’s darkness fell over the stony beach. Alaine finally surfaced after nearly a full day of travel. She would stop only when Noalen disappeared on the horizon, she decided, and then she saw a new land before her.

She swam towards the black silhouette of the island. There were no lights, there was no smoke, no signs of civilization at all. Most importantly: no eyes to witness her.

Alaine dragged herself out of the sea and onto the beach. She hefted two leather bags out with her: one containing supplies, the other containing evidence of her crime.

Rapidly she raked her fingers through her blue hair to comb the moisture out. Her hair was like that of the sirenes’, silky and water-repellent. It dried in just a short moment, and then her scaly fish-tail split into two scaly legs. She transformed back into her terrestrial form with a flash of light. Her feet were bare, the rest of her body clad in a simple sharkskin dress and a shawl made of the same material.

Hefting her two bags on her shoulders, she walked further inland and up a steep hill. Her Aquarian eyes saw through the darkness and looked over the vast plain waiting for her at the top of the hill. There was not a single tree to be found on the island. Only a field of short grasses, forever bowing in submission to the coastal wind. She saw a tall mountain in the distance, its rocky face fractured with caves.

A waterfall spilled from the highest peak down into a pool below, which flowed into a narrow river. The river snaked all over the island and then flowed into the sea. The mountain was the only cover to be found, so Alaine headed for its base.

She crossed the windy plain in silence. The sea hissed at her back, beckoning her to return. But she would not, _could_ not, until she finished what she set out to do.

Alaine slipped into the inky blackness of a shallow cave. Still the whisper of water haunted her, for she could hear the waterfall outside. She set her bags down and opened one of them, turning it upside-down.

The decapitated head of Mr. Ocean fell out. The head slapped against the stone below, limp and motionless. His facial and cranial tentacles lie around him like dead snakes. But there was still life in him yet, for he soon opened his eyes. His yellow irises shone dimly in the darkness.

Alaine kneeled before the head. Breathlessly she told him, “We are a long, long way from home, in a place where no one will ever find us. I have demands and you’re going to meet them, or else you’ll never go home again.”

Ocean’s weary eyes stared up at her for a moment. Then they slowly closed, and his voice was barely a croak when he replied, “I am home.”

Alaine’s expression hardened. “Don’t play with me, Ocean. What you’re doing to my sisters is just as evil and crazy as the Sovereign’s war against Terria! Don’t you see that? What makes you think it’s okay to turn them into your thralls and—and force them to fight this stupid feud you have with your brother?” Her tone escalated, echoing off the stony walls.

Mr. Ocean’s eyes remained closed. He drew no breath, yet somehow he spoke back to her and said, “Please understand me…I never wanted it to be this way…” His voice was slow and hoarse.

“You sacrificed the lives of hundreds, probably even thousands of Terrian girls! All for your own benefit!” exclaimed Alaine. “I _know_ you can break their thralldom with your magic. You did it for me and Deanne DuPont, and then you gave us a choice. I chose to live my own life.” She gestured to the opening of the cave. “You didn’t force us into a bath of magical slave-water! Where is this coming from? W-why are you doing this?”

Mr. Ocean went on, “Sovereign grows stronger while I grow weaker…I had to make difficult choices…Make difficult…sacrifices…for the greater good…”

“Okay, what’s this ‘greater good’ you keep blabbering about?”

Ocean opened his eyes again, meeting her own. “Terria,” he rasped. “To save…Terria…”

“You’re an Aquarian,” Alaine told him flatly. “You don’t belong in Terria, you can’t even _survive_ in Terria—there is no good reason for you to give a single shit about Terria!” Her voice escalated to a scream. She slammed her fists against her knees in frustration.

The cecaelian head was quiet for a long moment. Finally, he admitted, “The reason is love…I’m sworn to leagues and leagues of love…”

“What do you mean?” asked Alaine, cocking her head.

“I made…a promise…so…so long ago…” The cecaelia’s voice was getting quieter, raspier, harder for Alaine to understand. She leaned in close as he whispered on, “…I loved…her…”

He fell silent. His eyelids closed heavily. Alaine waited for some time, then dared to reach out and give his skull a cautious tap with her finger. “Ocean?” she queried. He did not move or speak.

“God damn it,” the mermaid grumbled. She stood up and lifted his head, carrying it outside the cave. The wind was chilly, nearly freezing, but she knew both she and Mr. Ocean could tolerate such temperatures for a long time—long enough to complete her quest. And if not, she thought, then it was a cause worth dying for to save her sisters from his oppression.

She carried his head to the great pool at the base of the mountain. The waterfall spilled into it with a deafening hiss. Perhaps if she left him in the water overnight, he would regain his strength and they could discuss her demands tomorrow. So she set his head in a shallow part of the pool, nestled between reeds and stones, and then returned to the cave.

In her second bag was enough food and supplies for a week. Alaine was a survivor with ten years of Alliance training behind her, and she knew she could survive a lot longer than that with her skills alone.

The island looked barren on the surface, but she knew that wasn’t really the case. Where there was plantlife, there was animal life, and where there were animals, there were endless resources for the taking.

There was already driftwood scattered around the cave, probably remnants from a past storm. Alaine gathered it and started a fire. Just because she _could_ tolerate the cold didn’t mean it was comfortable. She would use the light and smoke to find her way back when she left the cave again, scouting the area.

She rounded the side of the great mountain, and there she saw old ruins standing in the plains. She approached slowly, quietly, and soon realized she had nothing to fear. There were no signs of life in this ancient, abandoned site. Only the crumbling stone foundations of buildings and the last shreds of rotting tools. Alaine found many axeheads and rusty sawblades lying around.

This was probably once a foresting operation, though by the total lack of trees, it seemed they’d done their job a little too well. She examined the site closer, picking through old clothes, boots, and refuse left behind.

She found mangled tin cans and old glass bottles scattered around a fire pit. By the size of the boots, she determined that the laborers here were probably human. By the style of their clothes, probably Folkvaran.

The little island had been stripped of its valuables and abandoned, perhaps in desperate times of war. Alaine filled her empty bag with anything that looked useful before making her way back to the cave. It hung heavy on her shoulder, all full of metal axe heads and old tools.

As she crossed the dark plain, she jumped at a screeching sound from the sky. High above, two large birds were circling her. They soon landed before her, thumping clumsily down into the grass. Alaine unsheathed the dagger on her belt and gasped with fright, for they were not birds at all.

They were harpies, hideous monsters with humanoid faces and torsos. Their large eyes were round as coins, and between them was a long beak in place of a nose. Their bodies were covered in downy fur and feathers. Alaine’s gaze flicked down to their feet, face contorting in disgust at the boney three-toed talons she saw. Each claw was as long as her finger.

Attached to their shoulders were not arms, but feathery wings which they folded up close to their bodies when they approached her. They circled around her like predators sizing up their prey, growling and squawking their awful sounds.

“Look! It have a cutter, Kinney!” one of them cackled, jutting her beak towards Alaine’s knife. Whether she was male or female was impossible for Alaine to tell, but she did know that most harpies were female and made an assumption. Her long, brown hair was bound in dirty locks, fair skin ruddy with windburn.

The second harpy—supposedly Kinney—looked much the same, though her hair and feathers were a pale yellow color. Her mouth spread into a wide grin below her beak, exposing sharp teeth with wide gaps between them.

Kinney looked Alaine in the eye and told her, “Cut me, and Sleater attack. Cut Sleater, and I attack. You can’t survive. Drop cutter!”

Alaine turned around with them, trying to keep an eye on both at once. “Is this a robbery? Look at me! Do I look like I have anything worth stealing?” she asked impatiently.

“It has much meat and bones,” slobbered the dark-haired Sleater.

“I take its eyes,” said Kinney.

Sleater argued, “No! I want eyes!”

Kinney turned towards the other harpy, spreading her wings to puff herself up. “You eat eyes last time! This time is mine!”

“You lie!”

“No lies! Fat, greedy peckerhead!”

“You peckerhead!”

“ _You_ peckerhead!”

The harpies’ screeching voices wailed back and forth over the wind. Alaine slowly began creeping away from their squabble. Sleater beat her wings and launched into the air, digging her claws into Kinney’s shoulders before savagely pecking at her head.

Kinney flapped her wings and stumbled about. The pale-haired harpy threw herself on the ground and rolled on top of Sleater, pecking her right back.

Alaine was surprised to see harpies on such a barren island, but she was not at all surprised by their behavior. She swiped two fistfuls of sand off the ground and called “Hey!”

They turned her way, only to get sand thrown into their big, round eyes. They erupted into frantic squawks, clawing their clumsy fingers against their faces.

She could have fled then, but Alaine wished to send a message. She shrugged the heavy bag off her shoulder and swung it at Kinney’s head. Blood and spittle sprayed from the harpy’s mouth on impact, casting her to the ground. Then she swung the bag in the opposite direction and hit Sleater too. She heard a sharp crack, saw the tip of Sleater’s beak break off and sail through the air.

“I’ll let you live this time, but don’t you freaks mess with me again!” she snarled, slipping the bag back on her shoulder. She figured they had surely learned their lesson, leaving them to writhe as she hurried back to the cave. She took the Good Guy code seriously, whether Evan was watching or not.

_Harm no innocents._

_Help those in need._

_Kill only in necessity._

Harpies were impulsive and notoriously unintelligent creatures. Alaine pitied them far more than she ever feared them. But cecaelia…cecaelia were something to be feared indeed.

With strength and wit far greater than that of a human, magical powers and a 1,500 year lifespan to hone them, regenerative abilities, and no less than ten limbs, Alaine could never bring herself to trust them.

Cecaelia must have regarded humans the same way humans regarded harpies: pathetic, dumb, miserable creatures. Insignificant apes with no worth, whose lives meant nothing at all. Mr. Ocean exploited them like pets, while Sovereign exterminated them like pests.

Alaine had enough. No longer would she let her sisters fall prey to the Aquarians. She would turn the tides or die trying.

*

The last of Woodborne’s refugees were packing up their campsites and returning home. But the Freelance Good Guys remained, forbidden to leave until the Resistance leader and their crewwoman were found.

Commander Roach and a half-dozen dorikori patrolled the camp, ensuring that all ten mercenaries were accounted for at all times. Had Evan rolled his eyes any harder at the situation, he was certain they’d be lost in his skull. Still he knew that resisting the Resistance was a bad move, so he and his crew tolerated the intrusion as quietly as they could.

The campfire was dying. When Lukas headed for the forest to gather more wood, a dorikori thrust her long spear in his path. “No further,” she told him sternly.

Lukas’ expression hardened. He pushed her spear down and replied, “Calm down. I’m just getting firewood.”

“No further,” she repeated, shunting him back with her shoulder. “You are to stay within all of our sights. Commander’s orders.”

Lukas opened his mouth to shout at her. He glanced back at the rest of his crew, crowded somberly around the campfire. Then he sighed through his nostrils and muttered, “Fucking unbelievable…” before storming towards the Commander.

“Roach!” he called. The cecaelia turned to him, leaning against the handle of his spear. The end was stabbed into the ground. Lukas pointed back to the dorikori and went on, “Tell your fish-wenches to back off a little, will you? We aren’t like you, we can’t survive without fire!” He gestured to the dwindling flames in the pit.

“I can,” mentioned Glenvar, sitting on a log and sipping a bowl of broth. He still hadn’t put a shirt on since yesterday, despite the frost on the ground.

Lukas rolled his eyes and told Roach, “Glen’s a freak, he doesn’t count. But if you won’t let the rest of us go into the forest, we won’t have any wood to feed the fire. You might as well just kill us.”

Roach considered his words for a long moment, stroking his beard of tentacles in thought. Finally he said, “I’ll send one dorikori to gather it for you. But should you take advantage of my lenience, you will be shown no mercy.”

“Whatever,” mumbled Lukas, taking his seat by the fire once more. Roach sent one of the mermaid soldiers away into the forest and the other five stepped in closer, surrounding the mercenaries like a wall.

Glenvar finished the last of his broth and tossed the bowl aside. Wiping his beard with the back of his arm, he loudly belched and then asked the Commander, “Hey, Roach, I got a question fer ya—”

“Glen…” warned Evan. He could already tell the next words out of his cohort’s mouth—which reeked of bourbon—were going to get them in trouble.

Glenvar continued, “How’d ya get that hook in yer nose anyway? Looks like ya fell in a damn tacklebox! Went and nibbled on a shiny spinner, didn’t ya?” He slapped his knee and burst into loud, hearty laughter. He gave Evan a nudge, but the captain only buried his weary face in his hands.

Roach hadn’t a laugh to give. But he humored them with an answer, tone serious as ever when he said, “Hardly. The hook is a symbol of marriage for my people.”

Glenvar’s golden brows arched. “Yer kiddin’! Someone married _you_?” he blurted.

“Glen, _shut up_ …” groaned Evan.

But they hadn’t drawn Roach’s ire yet, for the cecaelia explained calmly, sullenly, “Of course. I was a _king_ once. Every scylla in the village would beg me to fertilize their eggs, and I suppose I was obligated...”

His yellow eyes drifted towards the cloudy sky, looking wistful as he sighed, “But only she, the One of Lobster-Red, could throw my twin hearts out of sync. I chose her as my sole companion and she ruled by my side.”

“So you were a mighty king,” began Glenvar, “and now yer babysittin’ a bunch’a crusty mercenaries. What happened? Did she dump ya or what?”

“Glen!”

“Glenvar, really!”

“Glen, please!” his crew scolded him all at once.

The cecaelia’s grip tightened on the handle of his spear, deep blue knuckles turning white. “The Alliance happened,” he replied, voice low and dripping with bitterness. “Like an insatiable shark, the Sovereign absorbed every village around us. Then he barged into my court and approached me with two choices: fight for his cause or fight for my life.”

He let out a quiet, gurgling sigh. “Let’s just say I chose poorly, despite my queen’s warnings. Yet it was she who suffered the most for my actions. The Sovereign conquered my village for himself and now holds her captive in his harem.”

Roach’s flat nose wrinkled in disgust, light glinting off the hook in his nostril. “The thought of that slug-armed bastard claiming her eggs makes me sick! The thought of my sons fighting his battles, the thought of my daughter imprisoned in an Alliance nursery, I can hardly bear it!”

Roach heard a soft sniffle. He turned towards the campfire to see Jeimos drying their eye with their fingertip. Tiny ghosts of steam rose from their teartracks. “Goodness, how tragic! I cannot imagine the grief you must feel,” the elf whimpered. “You have my condolences, Mr. Roach. I can certainly understand how you’ve come to join the Resistance.”

The Commander looked upon them and his brow softened ever so slightly. His tone quieted from bitter to somber as he said, “I don’t deserve your sympathy, little elf. I deserve to be strung up by my tongue and flogged to pieces for what I’ve allowed to happen to my people.”

Roach’s gaze fell to his feet. “Truth be told,” he began quietly, “the fate of Terria is none of my concern. Mr. Ocean’s strange passions, his nonsensical cause—that’s all his own. I just know that crazy old sorcerer is the only one in this world who can take down the Sovereign, and when he does, I’ll be there to claim my family and my crown once again. So, if Mr. Ocean needs this mighty king to be on babysitting duty…” He swept his hand around at the mercenaries. “…all I ask is, ‘for how long?’”

“And how long do ya got?” asked Glenvar.

Roach leaned in close and answered, “Until divines become dust.” He rose upright, his yellow glare sweeping between them all. “And if your little mermaid friend harms Mr. Ocean, should she do _anything_ to compromise the Resistance, I will personally hunt down and kill every last one of you. Don’t forget that.”

Lukas scowled. “Touch even one of us and you’ll unleash a floodgate of shit. Don’t forget _that_ , tacklebox,” he said sharply.

Evan reached over and seized the archer’s hand, squeezing it so forcefully that Lukas felt his finger joints pop. A silent warning. A desperate plead.

Roach smiled at Lukas, but the crew knew better. Cecaelia didn’t smile—they only showed their teeth.

The cecaelia rumbled, “Strike me down once, and then you will know why they call me ‘Roach’.”

*

Morning light washed into the cave. It splashed onto Alaine’s face, waking her from her fitful slumber. For a brief moment she’d forgotten where she was. Then she quickly tossed a piece of driftwood onto the fading fire and rushed outside.

Alaine dropped to her knees by the pool’s shore. The water was clear and still, but she could not see Mr. Ocean’s head. Her heart skipped a beat. She hunched over and dug frantically through the mud, ripped reeds out of the soil, ran back and forth around the shoreline.

Perhaps it had sunk to the depths? Or the gentle current carried it away? Had an animal gotten to it? Her heart was filling with dread. She could not return to Noalen without Mr. Ocean’s pardon. In fact, she could not even leave the island without his protection. Not with undine skulking about.

She heard a soft flapping sound from above. Up in the sky, two large, winged silhouettes were speeding towards the top of the mountain. The harpies! They had surely stolen the cecaelia’s head, thought Alaine.

Without a thought, she began scaling the face of the mountain. She had to reach them before they ate Mr. Ocean—assuming it wasn’t already too late.

There were plenty of protruding edges to clasp onto. But as Alaine climbed higher, she reached a narrow, precarious little trail that snaked up to the top. She could only assume the Folkvaran lumberjacks once used it, and by the state it, that was a very long time ago.

Parts of the path had collapsed with time and exposure, other parts overgrown with low-lying plants. She climbed and leaped over the gaps and minded her bare feet around the jagged rocks.

Alaine hadn’t slept well, hadn’t eaten or drank anything since she started her journey up the mountain. She was exhausted by the time she reached the top, and only then did she realize she’d forgotten a weapon in her haste. She had only her sharkskin dress and her own fists to protect her as she crept over the grassy platform.

From this great height, she could see the entire island stretched out before her. Though she hardly noticed the view, for her eyes were fixated on the two harpies. They hadn’t seen her yet. Their backs were turned to her as they flapped, squawked, and fussed at the riverside.

Alaine’s gaze followed the river. It was the source of the waterfall spilling down into the pool below. She was not quite at the very top of the mountain—there was another layer of its face that was too steep to climb, from which the river was mysteriously sourced.

Cautiously, Alaine crept low to the ground and slowly padded towards the harpies. If she took them by surprise, she could snap one of their necks and fight the other one-on-one. Then she was free to search for their hoard, where she hoped she would find Mr. Ocean’s head.

She knew that all harpies hoarded food and valuables. Their divine creator, Varas, made them that way, for she was a notorious thief in her mortal life.

Alaine was nearly an arm’s length from Sleater. Sleater and Kinney were both focused heavily on the water before them, reaching in with their talons but unable to grasp whatever it was they wanted. Alaine also knew that if their feathers got wet, they’d be unable to fly. So she seized Sleater by her dirty locks and pushed her into Kinney.

Kinney fell forward into the river, screeching and flailing about wildly as Alaine leaped onto Sleater’s back. She tried to jerk the harpy’s neck, but her hair was so neglected that it simply ripped out of her scalp when she pulled. Alaine fell backwards with two fistfuls of hair in her hands, and now Sleater was looming over her like a predator.

She looked even more grotesque now with her broken beak. Sleater was not happy about her beak, and she certainly wasn’t happy to see Alaine. The harpy seized the opportunity for revenge, letting out a furious squawk as she jumped on top of her.

Harpies typically gored their prey with their beaks. But Sleater had lost that luxury to Alaine, so she slashed at her with her sharp talons, opening deep gashes anywhere they could reach. Alaine gnashed her teeth and refused to shriek, refused to give this creature the satisfaction. She shielded her face with her arms as she bent her knees, then delivered a mighty kick outward.

Her heels rammed against Sleater’s ribs. She felt them give way with a quiet crunch. Sleater hopped back just as Kinney had dragged herself out of the river. Sopping wet and unable to fly, the pale-haired harpy charged at Alaine head-first. The mermaid quickly staggered to her feet and braced herself for the attack.

She jumped to the side and Kinney blew right by, though she grabbed a fistful of Kinney’s hair and tried to yank her to the ground. But the harpy’s hair was wet and slick, and it was Alaine who hit the ground instead. She was overwhelmed in an instant as both harpies descended upon her in a flurry of beating wings, pecking beaks, and slashing talons.

Alaine curled into a tight ball. She turned her face towards the ground and shielded her head with her shredded arms. It was over. All she could do was protect her vital organs as long as possible and pray for a miracle.

It seemed the gods truly did favor her, for in that moment, her prayers were answered. Suddenly the harpies’ weight was lifted away. Their scraping claws and stabbing noses ceased, and their loud squawks died to choking rasps.

Slowly, cautiously, Alaine peeked out from the protective shield of her arms. She saw Mr. Ocean standing tall by the riverside as if he’d never been decapitated in the first place. Tangled in his six tentacles were Sleater and Kinney. He squeezed them around their ribs and throats until they were blue in their faces. Their wings stopped flapping and instead began to twitch.

Alaine wasn’t sure if they were alive or dead when he flung them into the river. She thought she saw them still twitching as the current carried them down and down, and finally they disappeared over the waterfall with two panicked screeches.

She rolled onto her back, and doing so caused pain to rocket through her every nerve. The adrenaline was fading, giving way to the agony of her wounds. She knew not their extent until she tried to sit up and examine herself.

She couldn’t. She could hardly move at all. She felt the warmth of blood dribbling down her face, stinging as it pooled in the corner of her eye.

She thought she’d been splashed with river water in the chaos, but now she realized she was not wet with water. It was blood, and every bit of it was her own. Her breath was labored as fluid gurgled in her throat. She coughed it up and her eyes rounded in horror at the red mist that sprayed out.

Alaine was dying. Her wounds were too great, her blood spilling too fast. She couldn’t find the energy to think back on her life, on all her achievements and mistakes, and instead simply watched as the sky above turned black.

*

Someone was whispering far off in the distance. Their voice grew louder and louder still, until she realized it was only the waves of the sea.

Alaine opened her bleary eyes. She shaded her brow from the bright light of the sun as she pushed herself upright. Her arm looked different, she noticed, covered in shallow, pink scars. She recalled then what had happened, that it had not been a nightmare after all.

She looked down at her legs and once more at her arms, turning them all around. The terrible gashes were all closed. Faint scars were left in their place. Yet her dress was still stained with blood, and so too was the patch of grass beneath her.

Her body was sore from head to toe. She winced as she rose to her feet and looked around. She was still atop the mountain. The plains of the island surrounded her, the sun shining in the blue sky—but no, it was not the sun. It was a golden, magical ball of light suspended just a short distance above her. Warmth radiated from its core, pleasant on her skin.

The sky was blue only above the island, as if some invisible barrier parted the clouds. The rest of the sky was gray as it had been before, dark and ominous and threatening to drop rain.

Alaine was not alone, it seemed. She saw a figure turned away from her, sitting cross-legged some distance away. It was Mr. Ocean, his tentacles coiled on the ground around him in a spiral, apparently staring at a stack of heavy stones near the precipice.

Alaine considered approaching him. She considered sneaking up on him and breaking his neck. She considered pushing him off the cliff’s edge. Then she found herself moving towards him, sitting beside him, and speaking to him.

“You had no reason to save me,” she said. Her voice was hoarse, sounding weaker than she wished it to. The cecaelia said nothing. He simply stared hard at the stones before him, as if trying to see through them.

Alaine endured the quiet for a long moment. She didn’t know what else to do or what to say. Her tired, sore body was content to just rest, so she did.

Finally, Mr. Ocean spoke. “This island is a sacred place,” he said softly. “I’ve tried so hard to forget it. I’ve avoided it for centuries, and yet…” He turned to her. “You brought me right to its shores. How did you know, little mermaid?”

Alaine shot him a strange look. She said, “I don’t know anything. I was just trying to hide from the world.”

Mr. Ocean nodded and turned back to the stones. “So too were we, Solveig and I. I think this place beckons those who seek refuge.”

Alaine absently picked at a lock of hair, sticky with dried blood. She thought she may as well ask, “And who’s Solveig?”

Mr. Ocean’s gaze remained on the stones as he replied, “Solveig was…well, she was nothing, and she was everything.”

“God, do you have to be so cryptic?” Alaine groaned, dragging her palms down her scaly face.

The cecaelia’s lips stretched into a little grin. “She was a Terrian. I loved her very much,” he explained. He willed magic to his fingers, and from them rose projections made of light. He held the figure of a human woman in his right palm, a walking cecaelia figure in his left. The figures approached eachother and embraced.

He continued, “Solveig was so bold, so courageous, and her smile was as bright and warm as the sun. She taught me how to smile. She taught me…well, she taught me many things.”

The figures joined hands before him, laughing as they danced joyfully together. “She showed me a world I never knew. I came to know Terria, and I fell in love with her world just as I’d fallen in love with her…”

The human figure suddenly fell to her knees. The cecaelia figure kneeled by her side and embraced her as she slowly began to crumble into dust. “I promised her that I would always protect what I loved. Then, in the blink of an eye, she was gone.”

The human figure disappeared, leaving the cecaelia figure to arch over her resting place in sorrow.

“She…” Alaine chose her words carefully. “…um, passed away?”

“Yes.” Mr. Ocean’s grin faded. “My life with her was brief, but it was the greatest joy I’ve ever known. My life without her has been a long, grueling trial. I have not known love or joy since.”

He closed his palms together, smothering the crying cecaelia figure between them. Its light faded, then Mr. Ocean dropped his hands back to his knees.

Alaine looked out at the plains below. She could see the lumber camp, just a speck on the otherwise barren island. She pointed to it and said, “There’s some ruins down there. Is that where you guys lived?”

“No. This whole island has been desecrated beyond measure. I wouldn’t have recognized it if not for the mountain.” Mr. Ocean glanced back at the river. “Solveig’s people called this place _Rezmetza_. In _Universa_ , I suppose that would translate to ‘Redwood Island’.”

Turning this way and that, Alaine remarked, “I don’t see many redwoods…”

“As I said,” Mr. Ocean sighed, “it has been desecrated. If only you could see it as we did. I have known over a thousand years of life, but I have yet to see trees taller than the ones which used to grow here.”

“Hm. No wonder Folkvar shipped a bunch of woodcutters here,” mumbled Alaine.

“If they hadn’t soiled this place, my brother surely would have,” Mr. Ocean said solemnly. “I’ve come to realize that nothing lasts forever. My time is all that I own.”

Alaine felt the pull of old, painful memories. They tugged at her heart, reminding her of their presence. “Yeah…” she agreed quietly.

They sat together on the precipice for another silent moment. Alaine sorted her thoughts, and then she said, “I think I get it now. Why you care so much about protecting Terria, I mean. You think you’re doing this out of love.”

She paused, thinking carefully before she went on, “But is it really love if you’re forcing it on someone? If you’re poisoning them and telling them it’s for their own good? Because, you know, sometimes love can blind us and we can’t see how ugly things really are.”

Mr. Ocean said nothing. Alaine continued, “I think your heart’s in the right place. You probably mean well.” She furrowed her brow. “But you’re also sick in the head. You’re drowning in your own sickness and you can’t even see how corrupt you’ve become. Do you understand me? Like, are you even listening?”

Finally, she drew a reaction from the cecaelia. His face contorted in pain. He drew his knees to his chest and his hands to his head, clawing at his face as he groaned, “You were right. Oh, no, no, no, you were right…”

Cecaelia did not cry, but Alaine knew a sound of anguish when she heard it. Mr. Ocean shook his head and expressed his sorrow in a long, croaking moan, as if enduring some painful torture.

“What you told me at the church—now I understand!” he continued raggedly. “You may only know my brother as a tyrant. But many lifetimes ago, he was a hero. He healed the sick, and he did so only out of love. But in time, the sick got sicker, and my brother became more desperate to save them. I understand now, how his love was corrupted. He became so blinded by his own love that he lost sight of it completely!”

Hiding his face in shame, Mr. Ocean went on miserably, “So too have I. In my brother’s desperation to save Aquaria, he began harming those he vowed to protect and convinced himself that it was for the greater good. What I’ve done to you Terrians is no different. Solveig, she…she would be ashamed of me.”

Mr. Ocean felt a warm hand on his shoulder. “Then make her proud. It’s not too late!” said Alaine. She pulled her hand away, cocking an eyebrow at the faint green residue left behind on her palm. She splayed her fingers before the cecaelia and added, “You _can_ reverse this, can’t you? You poisoned the dorikori with this green stuff, so there has to be a way to cure them, right?”

The cecaelia dug his claws deeper into his skull, hunching further into himself. “If there is a cure, it is far beyond me,” he groaned, “You see, my brother once infected me with a parasite that made me forget my pain. It also made me hunger for a medicine he called ‘greenbrite’.”

He let out a wet sigh. “Somehow, Solveig rid me of the parasite. But after she was gone, I hungered for greenbrite more than ever. It was as if the wretched little creature was still inside me, begging me to come crawling back to my brother for more abuse. Well, I didn’t. I made my own medicine to help me forget my pain and my promise. But I’m not half the sorcerer my brother is, and my fate was sealed the moment I swallowed it.”

“The greenlite?” queried Alaine.

“Yes. The greenlite rooted itself within me so deeply, even severing my own head could not rid me of it. I believe it’s taken hold of my brain, and it spreads throughout my system like a cancer.”

Mr. Ocean looked down at his palms. “I disposed of all the greenlite fungus years ago. It rotted away with the floeback whale I cultivated it in. Yet my body still produces the toxin, infecting everything I touch. I noticed that it was having effects on the dorikori. I thought perhaps I could use that to our advantage, but…”

He growled a little, in utter frustration with himself. “I knew the risks. I knew it would enthrall them to me, and I knew they would come to crave it as I craved greenbrite. I knew they would suffer, yet I convinced myself that it was all for the best, just as my brother had done to me. That it was all for _love_.”

Pausing for a long moment, Mr. Ocean finally continued, slowly and solemnly, “I thank you for bringing me here. I came to the mountain to visit Solveig’s grave before those harpies attacked. After I saw to your wounds, I had a long moment to sit here and reflect on my life. And do you know what I realized?”

Alaine shrugged. Mr. Ocean continued, “I realized that I fell out of love a very long time ago. What I’ve been doing, this twisted life I’ve been living, is not motivated by love. It is motivated by _obsession_. Solveig could have told me that, were she still around. She knew me better than I’ve ever known myself.”

Mr. Ocean finally rose to his feet, looking over the cliffside at the desecrated island. “I suppose we need a new perspective when our hearts are overwhelmed. I promised to protect what I love, but there is no love in my hearts anymore. The hole Solveig left in me is still empty, and no amount of fungus or power or obsessive meddling is ever going to fill it.”

He turned and began to follow the river to the other side of the platform. Alaine stood up and trailed him. “What do you think _can_ fill it?” she asked.

Mr. Ocean stopped at the waterfall, looking down at the pool far below. “Love,” he told her. “If time is all that I own, then I am letting it slip away by seeking power and influence. These are wicked things that will only corrupt me further. It is love that I must seek.”

Alaine shot him a curious look when he took her by the wrist and said, “Today I have been reborn. I wish to start life anew, with this new body and a new perspective. You are fully pardoned of your crimes, little mermaid—”

“Alaine,” she told him. “My name is Alaine Fontaine of Laraine.”

“Well,” he began, “let us return to Woodborne, Alaine Fontaine of Laraine.”

“Er, wait—” said Alaine, but it was too late. Mr. Ocean dragged her along as he leaped over the edge of the falls. She shrieked all the way down, down and down until they splashed into the pool below.

*

Evan found it very hard to sleep under the scrutiny of the Resistance. He couldn’t see them, but he could _feel_ the dorikori posted just outside his tent. Glenvar must have felt the same, for he lie awake beside him, staring angrily into the blackness.

The autumn night was quiet and still as death. The songs of crickets and frogs were absent so late in the year, which made it all the more jarring when a new song took their place. Evan and Glenvar quickly poked their heads out to listen to the unusual sound.

They saw the dorikori guards walking away towards the town. The mermaids moved stiffly as if caught in a trance, their eyes glowing bright green. A booming, melodic voice carried over the sky like thunder:

“ _Quietly, you set your worries free,_

_Silently, you give your souls to the sea,_

_Willingly, you pledge your allegiance to me,_

_Finally, it’s wonderful! It’s wonderful! It’s wonderful to be free!”_

The mercenaries cautiously left their tents, exchanging looks of confusion. Commander Roach looked just as befuddled as they did, looking back at the camp as he reluctantly followed his soldiers. “Mr. Ocean calls!” he barked to the mercenaries. “Come with us, quickly!”

The Freelance Good Guys frantically slipped on just enough clothes to make themselves decent, then hurried after the enthralled dorikori. As they moved into town, they saw hundreds of other Resistance dorikori heading the same direction, flooding the streets until they finally converged at the docks.

The dorikori organized themselves into a layered semi-circle. The mercenaries clumsily moved through their formation. Their eyes rounded when they saw it—a pod of dolphins heading straight towards Woodborne. There were dozens of them, launching themselves out of the water in twisting, graceful arcs as they squealed with glee.

Among the dolphins was a great, bright light glowing beneath the surface of the water. The mercenaries began to panic, fearing that the Alliance had returned to dump more soldiers on the town.

Then a monochrome behemoth surfaced, and so too did the light. The mercenaries squinted and shielded their brows from its golden brightness. A large orca whale approached the docks, and upon its back were two familiar figures. Mr. Ocean and Alaine sat on either side of the creature, clutching its dorsal fin. A magical orb hovered between them, shining like a false sun.

The glowing eyes of the dorikori faded. They blinked, looking around for a moment before they spotted their leader. They erupted into cheers as he lifted Alaine into his arms, stepping off the whale and onto the docks.

Alaine was consumed in a flash of white light. She transformed back into her terrestrial form and Mr. Ocean set her back on her feet beside him.

Just as soon as they appeared, the whale and all the dolphins turned around and swam away towards the horizon. Alaine waved to them as they left.

Then in an instant, she was trapped in the tight squeezes of ten happy crewmen. They crowded around her in a flurry of tears and laughter, overjoyed by her return. Commander Roach approached Mr. Ocean, pulling the bone staff off his back and returning it to its rightful owner. Mr. Ocean tapped the orb of light with the end of the staff. It exploded like a firework, casting the docks in darkness once again.

Between the cover of light and the guardianship of the dolphins, he and Alaine made it safely back to Noalen. Alaine greeted her crew with a round of hugs and kisses, then they turned to Mr. Ocean as he began to speak.

He said, “My friends, I come to you now not as the leader you once knew, but as a stranger you have never met…”

Standing by his side, Roach turned to him, brow hardened in curiosity. A low murmur spread through the dorikori. Mr. Ocean pointed his staff towards Alaine and continued, “Do not punish this one for her crimes, for she is forgiven. In fact, she has my most profound gratitude and respect, for she was bold enough to stand up to me when she saw my wrongdoings. My friends, I have greatly mistreated you. I have poisoned your blood and robbed you of your wills—not with your benefit in mind, but for my own selfish gains…”

He tipped his head low. “My apology cannot cure you of the sickness I’ve cursed you with. But I am truly, deeply sorry to all of you. I cannot continue fighting for the Resistance, for my motivations no longer lie in love. The best thing I can do for you all is to disappear and take my horrid greenlite with me. I am doing you no favors by indulging your illness. The absence of my medicine will leave a hole in your hearts, but I warn you now that filling it with more medicine will leave you just as empty.”

Finally, he forced himself to look upon the faces of his soldiers. A crowd of slacked jaws and wide eyes, blue stared back. “You will not find purpose in bitterness and obsession,” he told them. “Go forth and fill your hearts with love, and I will do the same. I’m afraid this is goodbye.”

The crowd split for him as he passed, walking away into the town. Panicked murmurs spread among them. Deanne pushed her way through the crowd, ran up to Alaine and seized her by her sharkskin shawl.

“Alaine, what did you _do_?” she snarled. Evan and Lukas quickly pulled Deanne away from their crewwoman and stepped between them.

Alaine replied sharply, “I did what had to be done, and one day, you’re gonna thank me for it.”

Deanne balled her fists. For a moment she looked like she may lunge, but Alaine’s crew stared her down with more eyes than she was willing to challenge. With a loud growl, Deanne whirled around and disappeared back into the crowd.

Alaine saw Commander Roach following Mr. Ocean down the main road, speaking words she could not hear over the chatter.

“I’ll meet you guys back at camp later,” she told her crew. Before they could protest, she was already running after the two cecaelia.

*

“Mr. Ocean, please reconsider!” Roach pleaded. “No one knows the Sovereign’s tricks like you do! The Resistance will surely fall without your guidance!”

“The Resistance is no longer my concern,” Mr. Ocean replied flatly. He walked down the long stretch of road through the town. The streets were barren this time of night, except for sleeping beggars and shady characters lurking in the alleys.

Alaine rushed up to the two. Roach whipped his head towards her with an intense glare. “You!” he growled. “What have you done to Mr. Ocean? He no longer cares for the cause!”

“He _never_ cared for the cause,” Alaine told him. “And you obviously never cared for him! Can’t you see how sick he is? Why have you allowed him to literally wallow in his own toxicity? If you were really his friend, you would have put a stop to this ages ago!”

Mr. Ocean walked silently ahead, head tipped low as the two bickered beside him. Roach argued, “I am _his_ subordinate, you little fool! He tells _me_ what to do, not the other way around!”

“Oh, is that why? Because I think you’ve been taking advantage of him,” said Alaine. “His sickness benefits you, doesn’t it? You’re his Commander—if anyone had the power and responsibility to help him, that would be you! But no, you let him rot until his sickness infected your whole damn faction!”

Roach turned back to Mr. Ocean and said, “Don’t allow yourself to be fooled by her human lies! Without our protection, the Sovereign threatens not only Terria, but all of Aquaria as well. You know that to be true, so don’t give up, Mr. Ocean! You must keep fighting!”

“I’m sorry, Undying One. I cannot fight in earnest for what I do not love in earnest,” Mr. Ocean replied somberly.

“Are you saying,” Roach began slowly, “that you would not even fight for your own home? Your own people? Are you really saying that you don’t care about the fate of Aquaria?”

Mr. Ocean answered flatly, “Aquaria can boil over for all I care. If your concerns lie with Aquaria, you should speak with my brother.”

Roach’s jaw dropped, and so too did Alaine’s. They froze in the middle of the dark street as Mr. Ocean trudged slowly onward. Then Alaine let out a choking gasp when Roach seized her by the throat. He lifted her high, feet dangling off the ground. “You lying, meddlesome pest!” he snarled.

Alaine kicked her legs and tried to twist out of his grip, but his tentacles wrapped around her limbs in an instant. He bellowed in her face, “Do you realize what you’ve done? Because of you, all the world will be thrown into chaos! Your people will die, my people will bow to a tyrant, and I will _never see my family again_!”

The mermaid’s face was turning red. “I’ll kill you for this, and every one of your pathetic little friends will follow!” Roach shouted. Alaine shut her eyes tightly, preparing to be torn in twain.

Then she hit the cobblestone road, choking and gasping for air. Through her blurry vision she saw Roach staggering back, clutching his head and howling in agony. Mr. Ocean was casting a spell just behind him, firing some kind of rippling pulse from his staff.

“You will not touch them so long as I live!” exclaimed Mr. Ocean. Roach doubled over. Black fluid blasted violently from every orifice in his face. It splattered onto the road, sparkling like the night sky liquefied. Alaine had never seen anything like it.

Roach let out a long, gurgling scream as the same starry fluid tricked from his every pore. Within seconds the fluid consumed him, and his form began to sink down and down, melting into ooze.

His screams faded away. Alaine covered her mouth, looking in awe upon the spot where he once stood. There was nothing left of him but a puddle of stars, and then the stars quickly disintegrated into smoke.

Roach was gone.

Still lying in the street, Alaine’s eyes flicked over to Mr. Ocean. “You killed him,” she said breathlessly.

“You give me far too much credit,” said Mr. Ocean, offering a hand. Alaine reluctantly let him help her to her feet as he explained, “There is a reason we call him ‘Roach’. He’ll be back before long.”

“Mr. Ocean, he’s _gone_! His body, his head—everything! There’s no way he can come back!” Alaine argued.

“Such things are no matter for a divine.”

Alaine paused. Her eyes rounded like the sun as she blurted, “A _what_?”

*

With Mr. Ocean found and the dorikori off their backs, the Freelance Good Guys figured it was time to start packing. The sun was just beginning to rise as they packed their tents and threw their belongings in the cart.

Then they spotted Alaine approaching with Mr. Ocean by her side. Evan breathed a sigh of relief and muttered, “Finally, there she is…”

“Is everything sorted with the Resistance?” Lukas asked sharply. “Can we _go_ now?”

The crew surrounded Alaine in the middle of the camp, awaiting her answer. She and Mr. Ocean exchanged uncertain expressions. Alaine swiped at the back of her neck as she told them, “We’re free to go, but um…I may have just totally pissed off a divine.”

Lukas blinked. “Excuse you?”

“Ya did what now?” queried Glenvar.

“But it’s okay!” Alaine explained quickly, splaying her hands before her. “Mr. Ocean says as far as divines go, he’s pretty young and actually not that powerful. Uh…it was Roach, for the record.”

“Ah, I knew it!” exclaimed Skel. He swatted Balthazaar before holding out his palm. “Pay up, Ballyhoo!”

Evan stepped forward and argued, “Alaine, even the weakest divines can make toys of mortals! What did you do to draw his ire? Isn’t there some way we can make amends?”

Mr. Ocean answered for her, “Not likely, I’m afraid. Roach was my protégé for many decades. I taught him the ways of magic, but he is brash and thick-headed, and there is much he doesn’t yet understand. He never releases a grudge, and I don’t know what he’ll do when he returns to this mortal realm. But considering what your friend here as done for me…” He tipped his head towards Alaine. “…I feel the least I could do is see that he doesn’t harm her loved ones.”

Evan cocked an eyebrow. “You’re saying you want to, er, accompany us on the journey home?”

“Even better,” Alaine said brightly, “I asked him to join the Freelance Good Guys!”

Silence fell over the group. Lukas let out a low groan as he scrubbed his palms over his face.

Alaine furrowed her scaly brow at them. “What? You guys got a problem with that?” she asked.

Evan said, “Alaine, you could have run this by us first. We can’t just drag new people into the crew without a discussion!”

“Okay, listen,” the mermaid began, pointing a finger at Evan. “When we started this job, _you_ said I had full authority as captain until it was over. Well, in case you forgot: the job’s not over. We still have twenty-one missing kids to track down, and guess who knows where they are?”

She gestured to Mr. Ocean. The cecaelia explained, “A small barracks lies on one of the islands to the east. New dorikori are trained there, I’m sure of it. We initially came to Woodborne to shut it down and steal the dorikori for ourselves but, well, then the Sovereign interrupted with an attack.”

The cecaelia stepped towards Evan, towering a foot and a half above him. “Please,” he said, “will you allow me to help you? I could surely destroy the barracks on my own, but those children will be scared and confused. It’ll take many hands to capture them safely. I can erase their thralldom with my magic, and you have my word that I will not poison them. I promise you, I do this only out of gratitude to you.”

Evan let out a harsh sigh, staring at the ground in thought. Finally he looked towards Alaine and queried, “Well, Captain? What’s our next move?”

Alaine answered him with a grin, “Anyone too injured to fight, pack up the cart and head home. Everyone else, let’s get on a boat tomorrow morning and finish what we started.”

*


	4. Epilogue

**[EPILOGUE]**

The Freelance Good Guys expected a grueling, arduous job ahead of them when they arrived on the island. Then they watched in awe as their newest recruit carried the mission almost entirely on his shoulders.

Predictably, the barracks guards did not greet their visitors kindly. Several dozen veteran dorikori and two undine commanders fought to defend their precious treasure: the fresh drones from Woodborne. Mr. Ocean first blinded the guards with magical beams of light, then disoriented them by pulsing the water in their bodies. Then their moment of weakness, the mercenaries moved in for the kill.

With such a remarkable mage on their side, the crew made short work of the mission with no casualties. All twenty-one missing girls were found in the barracks, but actually rounding them up was the hardest part of the job.

Alaine warned her crew that even young dorikori could be fearsome combatants. But it seemed these children hadn’t enough time to hone their skills.

Unfortunately they had already been transformed into mermaids. Their Terrian hair had fallen out, but their blue mermaid hair hadn’t yet grown in its place, leaving their heads as bald and smooth as pearls. Their lips and eyes were tinted blue, green scales covering their brows, cheeks, and legs.

Rather than fighting back, the untrained girls simply fled like frightened rabbits. The mercenaries spent more time chasing kids around than actually fighting the Alliance. Once all twenty-one drones were finally wrangled, Mr. Ocean used his spells to take away their thralldom.

Alaine felt great sorrow in her heart, for she knew that he could not give their childhoods back. The undine had permanently robbed the children of their Terrian memories. They did not remember their families and they would have to meet their parents all over again, as if they were strangers who never fed them at their breast or bounced them on their knee.

Today these children were reborn into a life that straddled the line between Terrian and Aquarian, and Alaine knew from experience just how isolating that life could be.

At the end of the day, the Freelance Good Guys fulfilled their contracts and stuffed their pockets with well-deserved gold. They used some of that gold to hire luxurious carriage rides back to Drifter’s Hollow. At last, they were on their way home.

The three carriages travelled down the road in a line. Alaine and Evan shared one, both half-asleep as they listened to the rain beat down on the metal roof. After a yawn, Evan said, “You were right, Alaine. I’m sorry for doubting you.”

The yawn was infectious. Alaine yawned back, “Right about what?”

“Our new recruit,” the captain replied, tipping his head vaguely towards the window. “My god, he’s incredible! Can you imagine what kind of contracts we’ll be able to take with him on our side? I think our ‘reject’ pile is about to get a lot smaller…”

Alaine offered a lazy grin and said, “Don’t get too excited. We don’t know how he feels about lycanthropes yet.”

“After what he did to all those poor mermaids, I don’t think he’s in any position to judge,” grumbled Evan. He paused, then let out a sigh and added, “But yes, I am still quite concerned about his, er… _instability_. He is clearly quite sick, both in body and mind. He’s the absolute last person I’d want going berserk on this crew.”

“Don’t throw serious jobs at him right away,” suggested Alaine. “Give him piddly stuff for a while. See how he does, and if he gets creepy, well…”

“We’ll have to come up with a way to let him go. A way that won’t plant a seed of violence in him,” warned Evan.

Alaine shook her head and assured him, “I don’t think he’s the type, Atty. When I took him to that Redwood place, he opened up his heart and I got to see who he really was. I don’t think he means anyone harm, he just…”

She sighed, “He’s really sick, like you said. I mean, the guy can cast all these big, fancy spells, but at the same time, he can’t even do the bare minimum to take care of himself. Like, do you see how thin he is? His eyes are sunken deeper than the Scar of Lorrowey! He looks like shit!”

Her gaze drifted out the window, watching the rain. “The people around him obviously weren’t lifting a finger to care for him either. People have just been using him like a tool his whole life, just like the dorikori. I…I don’t know. I feel like if he was treated like a person again, he would _act_ like a person again.”

“Hm,” Evan grunted, scratching his stubble in thought. “I sure hope you’re right, Ms. Fontaine. Otherwise we might have a walking disaster on our hands.”

The mermaid shrugged. “Did you already forget when I tried to murder you and Glen a few days ago? We’re _all_ walking disasters. I think we’re experts in that area.”

A smile crept onto Evan’s lips. He couldn’t help but chuckle when he said, “Fair enough. I suppose it takes one to know one, huh?”

The rain began to slow as the caravan approached Drifter’s Hollow. The clouds broke ahead, exposing the vivid blue sky beyond.

**END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you noticed any mistakes or have any criticisms, please let me know. And if you enjoyed the story, kudos are always appreciated. :)
> 
> Mr. Ocean is one of those characters you just wanna hug and slap at the same time. What a mess of a dude! Can the Freelance Good Guys sort him out? Well...they have a project ahead of them, that's for sure.


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